Restitution
by inkandpaperqwerty
Summary: Loki is taken back to Asgard to face justice for his crimes against humanity, and Odin comes down hard on the marauding trickster. Thankfully, Thor still has a soft spot for his younger brother, and he's made a pitch to save Loki's skin that the King of the Nine Realms deems worthy. Now he just has to get Earth's Mightiest Heroes to do the same. Easy, right?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I love Loki recovery stories, but I feel a lot of them don't do his character (or many other characters) justice. So, I decided to make one of my own. This is my first Avengers fanfiction, so please be kind in your reviews. Trigger Warnings will be posted at the beginning of whatever chapters contain the triggers listed. Iron Man 3 has taken place, Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier have not. This is a full cast story, with references to the other characters' standalone movies and appearances from some minor characters throughout. Please enjoy the story, and if you have the inclination, reviews are much appreciated. Thank you!**

* * *

Tony Stark didn't hate a lot of things. There were a lot of things that annoyed him. There were a lot of things that put him in a foul mood. There were a lot of things that ticked him off, disgusted him, and made him question the faith he may or may not have had in humanity, but there were few things he truly, deeply, entirely hated.

Tony Stark truly, deeply, entirely hated the morning.

Specifically, he hated the hours of the morning that fell between four and nine, because those five miserable hours were not nearly enough to get ready for another day. His hangover had not yet been slept off, coffee did little to wake him up, and his temperamental fuse was way too short to be dealing with people in a civil manner. So, of course, it had to be right smack dab in the middle of those five loathsome hours that he received a call from S.H.I.E.L.D. demanding his immediate presence.

_You've got to be kidding me._

But they weren't. So, with sleep lying in heavy circles beneath his eyes, he dragged himself out of bed and began the long trek up to the rooftop, already working out seventy-five different ways to kill Director Fury along with whoever had caused the early-morning disturbance.

_If you're gonna take over the world or hatch some __megalomaniacal __scheme, you could at least have the decency to do it at a reasonable hour. Earth's Mightiest Heroes need some Z's, too._

Tony got to the top floor and stepped onto the platform he typically used to take off his suit, snapping his fingers to get Jarvis' attention while his brain attempted to throw together a somewhat coherent sentence.

"Jarvis, suit me up. Use the uh—the Rewind Protocol we've been working on." He rolled his shoulders, trying to work out the kinks and knots that came with falling asleep on a work bench. "If Pepper asks, just tell her I'm out… I don't know. Tell her I'm working."

"Yes, sir," the mechanical voice replied. "And what should I tell her when she sees through that poorly constructed excuse and demands further information?"

Tony sighed, wincing slightly as the rotating applicator fastened his breastplate just a little too hard. "It's too early for this."

"Duly noted, sir."

Seconds later, the mask was snapped on, and—after a few moments spent grieving the loss of several hours of sleep—Tony Stark split the sky in two, making a beeline for the perceived location of the hellicarrier.

* * *

"How long did you say he'd be out for? Geeze, Stark better show up real soon. I am this close to putting an arrow through his eye socket. You hear me, Thor? This close."

Tony rolled his shoulders, cocking his head to one side and then the other in an attempt to stretch his muscles out. His flight had done absolutely nothing to help his body into a state of consciousness—in fact, he was almost positive he fell asleep multiple times en route—and from the sound of Clint's voice, the situation wasn't going to be any less stressful once he got to the meeting room.

"Please, have patience. I assure you, he will not wake until I command him to."

"What do you expect to gain by bringing him here? We won't give him anything less than death. America won't _accept_ anything less than death."

"I—I would truly prefer if we could wait until everyone is here. This situation is very… delicate… and difficult to explain."

Grasping the handle, Tony let himself in, spreading his arms in a display of exaggerated grandeur as he sauntered over to the only empty seat at the table. "Let's get this party started. Speaking of which, are you supplying drinks? Because there was no BYOB on the invitation, so you're technically obligated to give me, you know… what are we doing here?" He sat down and yawned loudly, rubbing his forehead to clear away some of the fog.

"I apologize for calling you all here so early." Thor, whose presence Tony would have questioned if he had the notion to, nodded in Bruce's direction. "Especially you, Dr. Banner. I am in your debt."

Bruce simply waved it off and leaned back in his chair, easily the most relaxed person in the room, but Tony found it odd that the doctor had nothing to say. When situations got serious, Bruce almost always offered a level-headed perspective to help calm things down.

_Huh._

Still, the exhausted multibillionaire wanted to get the show on the road, so he chose not to question it. Instead, he raised a hand and waved it around to get Thor's attention before dropping it back down and resting his chin on his palm. "Right, right, you're super grateful, and we're all super happy for you. But before you launch into your spiel, does someone want to tell me what's going on?"

No one said a word, but three fingers immediately extended to point at the far corner of the room. Tony had to lean slightly in order to see around Thor, but after that it took all of two seconds for him to grasp the situation.

"I hate you."

Thor sighed, rubbing his face. "I know, but I have a good reason for bringing Loki here."

"I'm sure you do, and now that Mr. Stark is here, I know we'd all love to hear it."

Tony startled at the familiar voice and turned to find the director and his right hand woman standing at the end of the meeting table. It seemed they had been there the whole time but had been out of his immediate line of vision, and given his current level of functioning, he hadn't noticed. In fact, he hadn't really noticed anyone in the room except Bruce and Thor, but now that he was looking, he realized the whole team was present.

Clint sat at the opposite end of the table and was, of course, furious beyond words. He sat with his arms folded over his chest and a permanent glare carved into his features, steam practically shooting from his ears. Natasha sat beside him, impassive as ever but still openly displeased with the situation. Both of them were in their uniforms, which was more than could be said of Steve, who had decided to show up in pajama pants and a hoodie, a pair of fluffy brown slippers on his feet. Then again, Tony was only wearing jeans and a t-shirt with little more than a million coffee stains on it, so he was in no position to judge.

"Start talking." It was Hawkeye who prompted Thor to explain himself.

Thor shifted again, glancing over his shoulder for a moment before turning to face his teammates once more. "When I took Loki to Asgard, I expected him to face justice. I didn't like it, but I assumed he would spend the rest of his life in prison or be executed upon his arrival, and at first it seemed I was right. Loki has spent these past two years in the Asgardian dungeons, but it turned out to be a temporary arrangement. Father wanted to take time to work out a sentence he deemed appropriate, and I received the details of that sentence at the crack of dawn of yesterday."

The thunder god paused, looking around the room to gauge the given reactions so far. Tony didn't give one. He wasn't entirely sure that he had one yet, actually. Whether it was the exhaustion stifling his ability to get mad or the fact that Loki was completely harmless in his current ragdoll state, he didn't know. All he knew was that he wasn't angry—not yet.

"Loki is to be bound in an underground cavern where a giant serpent will spray its venom on him until Ragnarok, which I am told is similar to the Midgardian Armageddon. During his sentence, anyone who wishes to take advantage of his situation can easily do so by gaining access to Asgard." Thor sighed, his shoulders slouching as if the weight of the situation hadn't even dawned on him until that moment. Steve was somewhat pale, and Tony's lips had curled into a light frown, but the others in the room remained expressionless.

"Father has disowned him," Thor continued, looking at the lump in the corner once more. "He hopes harsh punishment will make Loki realize the severity of his crimes, and that separating him from his family will grant him the independence he has so strongly demanded. I… disagree."

Silence travelled around the table, but it didn't last very long.

"What does this have to do with us?" Natasha bluntly verbalized the question that was on everyone's minds, but Steve was quick to tack on a tone of sympathy.

"We understand he's your brother, Thor, but you were the one who said he had to face Asgardian justice. What do you want us to do?"

Thor scanned their faces briefly, looking at Bruce for an exceptionally long time and speaking only after he had received a nod of approval from the doctor. "I have pleaded with Father to lighten Loki's sentence, but he has remained unmoved up until today. I made a suggestion—one that I think could benefit both Loki and Midgard—and he seemed to think it was… worth consideration."

Tony could feel the pressure building in the room. Thor's careful words were indication enough that what he was about to say had a high potential to tick everyone off, and when Tony factored in the speed of Clint's eye twitches, things looked even worse.

"I asked him if I could bring Loki to Midgard… and try to rehabilitate him."

Silence reigned once more, but it didn't last, even with Thor's hands outstretched in a wordless plea for everyone to give him a chance to explain.

"And he _agreed?_"

"Thor, you can't volunteer the whole planet for things without discussing it first."

"Even if we would agree, someone had better be ready to convince the Council. They're still angry about the Avengers Initiative getting pushed instead of Phase Two, and they aren't going to like this at all."

"Which is exactly why you can't volunteer the whole planet for things without _discussing _it first."

"Hey!" Steve was the one who brought peace back to the room, giving Thor a pointed look. "I assume you're going to explain yourself?"

Bruce raised a hand at this, gaining the attention of the table before clearing his throat and getting to his feet. "I'll actually give a little input on that, if you don't mind."

"Please do, Dr. Banner." Thor rubbed his face and then carded that same hand through his somewhat tangled hair, obviously dealing with the consequences of long-term stress.

Bruce gave a slight nod and cleared his throat again, standing up and adjusting his glasses before speaking. "Loki has actually been on planet earth for a couple days. Thor came to see me first, and we spent several hours discussing Loki's mental state. Loki was unconscious the entire time, and without the use of psychological tests, it's hard to say exactly what's going on up there, but I do have a general idea. My biggest concern is his psychosocial development."

Tony perked up at that, a contemplative expression crossing his face. "Psychosocial development?" he echoed, trying to pull up old information from his psychology classes. It had been at least a twenty years since he used those terms, but he could still scrape together a rusty idea of what Bruce was talking about.

"I'm sure you're familiar with Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development and the different stages a person is supposed to go through. Integrity verses Confusion is the first stage that occurs after childhood, and it's the stage in which someone figures out who they are and what they want out of their lives. They either obtain an identity, or they enter into a crisis and stay there until they can figure out what their identity is. Once they have an identity, they move onto the next stage, which is Intimacy versus Isolation." Bruce paused and skimmed his audience for any sign that someone did not understand. When there was none, he continued, obviously trying to make his explanation as short and sweet as possible.

"When someone skips a stage or goes backwards through stages, there can be serious repercussions. For example, trying to be in a relationships before you know who you are and what you want out of life. Or having a well-established and happy life that is suddenly thrown into reverse because of some catastrophic event." Bruce gestured to Thor. "We think this might have been what happened with Loki."

There was an audible scoff from Clint, and Natasha's eyebrow was arched sharply in disbelief, but Steve was thoroughly intrigued by the aspect. Tony himself couldn't deny that the theory had some interesting qualities, even if it was a bit farfetched.

"What makes you say that?" the super solder asked.

Thor was quick to jump back into the conversation. "My brother and I are both over one thousand years old, and we were told our entire lives that we were both sons of Odin, princes of Asgard, and fully Aesir. However, not too long before my brother's attack on Midgard, he discovered that such was not the case for him. He is—" Thor turned to look over his shoulder, almost as if he were afraid his brother would wake up and hear what he was about to say, despite the fact that Loki already knew. "He is the son of King Laufey, of the Frost Giants, and he is born of Jotunheim."

Tony quirked a brow. "Jotunheim?"

"One of the Nine Realms," the thunder god answered quickly. "To put it mildly, they are our mortal enemies. To put it bluntly, all of Asgard loathes their existence, and we are quite… what's the word? Dr. Banner—?"

"Racist," the scientist supplied.

"Thank you." Thor dipped his head to show his gratitude. "The Aesir are very racist towards the Jotuns. I am greatly ashamed to admit that, as a child, I aspired to one day wipe out their entire race, and I believe Loki did, too. It was something we believed was right, and finding out that he was one of them was… devastating, to say the least."

Tony cut in then, the cogs turning sluggishly inside his skull. "I thought Asgard was supposed to be advanced. Racism and torture aside, isn't it common knowledge that kids should know they're adopted as soon as possible? That's why people make soaps about people finding out they're adopted—it's makes for a great, big, dramatic mess."

"You're going to take his side on this?" Clint questioned from the other end of the table, his face a mask of thinly veiled rage.

"I'm not taking anyone's side. I'm only saying that, if what Thor's telling us is true, then we have to seriously consider the psychological aspect of things. Finding out you're adopted is traumatic enough on its own, but finding out you're adopted from a race you were raised to hate and demean is something else entirely." Tony's hands started to move as he spoke, his body slowly warming up as the last tendrils of sleep released their hold on him. "We haven't even asked how Loki found out, how he reacted, who he confronted, how it went, what the surrounding details were—we haven't even scratched the surface. Don't jump the gun just yet, Double-O." Barely taking a breath, he turned and pointed to Steve. "Remember when I told you Loki was a full-tilt diva?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah. Flowers, parades, and giant towers."

"That tower is a part of my identity. People know that the tower is mine, they know that I experiment with clean energy in there, and I know that they know it. What if Loki was trying to do the same thing? This is just a theory, but going with the little scenario Bruce and Thor set up for us, what if Loki was trying to build an identity in his own demented, cat-brained way?"

The super soldier cupped his hand around his chin, staring down at the table with a thoughtful expression on his face. "He didn't try to hide in Germany. He wanted to be seen and heard, and he wanted people to know his name. In his speech, he even said that our life's joy is diminished by a mad scramble for power and _identity_. Sounds to me like he had identity on the brain."

Tony wished he had some blueberries to give the man. Instead he simply gestured to Thor and waved his hand around. "Alright, we're following along so far. Keep going. I want the deets."

Sky blue eyes blinked slowly. "Deets…?"

"Details," Clint explained, leaning forward in his seat and placing all of his attention on the thunder god.

"Ah." Thor nodded and then paused, gathering his thoughts for a moment or two before speaking. "Well, I do not know the exact conditions, but… I suppose I will just start from the beginning. On the day I was to be crowned King of Asgard, Loki used his magic to sneak a handful of Frost Giants into the weapons vault. I… I truly do not think he meant any harm at the time, but in my rage I wanted to go to Jotunheim and force my enemies into submission. So, I did, and with me I dragged my brother and friends. I believe it was during this fight that Loki learned of his true heritage, but I was banished to Midgard immediately after our return, so we were never able to discuss it."

"You were banished?" Steve frowned, cupping his chin in his hand and leaning against the table. "What were the terms of that?"

Thor rubbed the back of his neck a bit sheepishly, allowing a quiet chuckle to pass through his lips. "I was banished because I acted against the will of my king and nearly started a war. On top of that, I endangered the lives of my brother and friends. If not for Loki, we would have surely died."

Tony was interested in hearing more about how Loki was responsible for their survival, but more than that he wanted to get the full story and figure out what the heck they were going to do with the mischievous horn-head. Steve was also satisfied, it seemed, and Thor continued his tale without any more delay.

"While I was on Midgard, Loki entered the weapons vault and picked up the weapon we took from Frost Giants many moons ago. My father tried to stop him, but he had already acquired the appearance a Jotun. He asked—"

"It changed his appearance?"

Thor looked across the table towards Natasha, nodding his head. "Yes. The Frost Giants have dark blue skin laden with risen marks and crimson eyes that are glassy and solid. That is Loki's true appearance."

Tony raised his hand. "If Loki does stay, I vote we make him go blue for Halloween." Not giving Thor the chance to say he didn't understand, the billionaire waved his hand around some more and leaned back in his chair. "Never mind. Just keep talking."

"Very well. Loki asked if he was cursed, and when Father said he wasn't, he began to demand answers. He got them, but he twisted the words, accusing Father of using him for political gain. I am told he was very distraught when Father fell into the Odinsleep, but they were never able to finish their conversation."

"The Odinsleep?"

Thor took a moment to look around, unsure of who had asked the question, seeing as three different voices had called it out. "It is a state the Allfather must enter into when he is weak. When you live for thousands of years, you must have some form of rest other than sleep. It is much like being unconscious or in a… a coma, I believe."

Bruce nodded, choosing that moment to push his way back into the conversation. "Sorry, Thor, but I'd like to finish up." He turned to face the rest of the table. "After Odin went into his sleep, Loki was crowned King of Asgard, and while in power he plotted to kill the King of Jotunheim and then destroy the planet entirely. Building on the previous theory of identity, we could refer to that as a stage of denial. He didn't want to be a Frost Giant, and he wanted to prove himself an Asgardian. He wanted to prove that the identity he was raised to believe was his, really was his."

"He cut his ties," Clint murmured, drumming his fingers on the table with an expression that made it seem as though he was actually considering the matter at hand. "He didn't want to be a part of them, so he turned against them to ensure no one would ever see them as the same race."

"What does that mean, though?" Everyone turned to look at Tony, who wasted no time in continuing his train of thought. "If he's got psychological issues, we might not want to sentence him to death or the cave of snakes, but what are you suggesting we do? Put him in a home for crazies? Send him to a shrink?"

Thor and Bruce exchanged glances, the older male's lips slowly parting. "Well… yes, actually."

Silence.

"Dr. Banner has already agreed to have daily sessions with Loki, and my Father sealed his magic before allowing me to bring him here. He still has impressive strength and agility, and his silver tongue and quick wit are both natural talents of his, but it will be easy to contain him. I brought a large amount of gold from the treasury, which I am told I can change into Midgardian currency, so Asgard will handle all of Loki's expenses as well as my own."

Thor looked around the table, but Tony knew he wasn't going to find what he was looking for. No one was convinced, and while Steve was sympathetic, it was clear that he wasn't going to take the trickster's side.

Tony decided to throw him a bone.

"Bruce, you agreed to be a therapist for Reindeer Games?"

Bruce nodded slowly, adjusting his glasses. "I know we can only give you a brief summary now, but Thor and I talked for quite some time, and I was given a detailed account of Loki's recent past and… not so recent past." He inhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing at his eyes. "I'm willing to give him a chance. He can't do much damage in the state he's in, and if there's a chance we could figure out what's going on inside that head of his, well…" he gestured to Fury and Hill, chuckling softly, "…maybe we could put some of his power on our side. I don't think anyone in the room would be opposed to that."

Looks were cast around the table, but in the end, Tony was once again responsible for keeping the conversation moving.

"Alright, so this could be good for us. We can all agree that we're in to getting stuff out of other stuff, and we can all agree that Loki's not much of a threat right now. Thor here's our buddy, so he's got that going for him, but I just have one more question. If we decide to let Loki hang around, where are we setting this up?"

Clint jumped on that, resting an elbow on the table and gesturing towards Thor with an open hand. "We need to be able to get to his location fast in the event that he tries something dangerous. You might be able to outvote me—maybe even convince me in a decade or two—but we can't put Loki anywhere where he has a chance of escape."

"Well… actually…" Thor and Bruce exchanged glances, silently tossing the answer back and forth.

Tony followed that answer with his eyes, glancing from one to the other and back again until realization finally dawned on him. "What? No. No, no, no. You are not bringing that psychopath into my tower!"

_I hate the morning._


	2. Chapter 2

Something was wrong. Granted, there was nothing particularly unpleasant about the surrounding environment, and he wasn't in any considerable amount pain or discomfort. Quite the opposite, it was very quiet and comfortable, almost peaceful. He felt clean and refreshed, and the air around him was similar, no longer dank or musty or laden with dust. Sunshine streamed in through a large window and danced across his face, the scent of mildew was gone, and he could feel soft, clean sheets rubbing against his skin.

_I'm not in prison anymore._

Every muscle in the god's body tensed, emerald eyes snapping open and quickly scanning his new chambers for any sign of an immediate threat. He saw none, but the thought of relaxation didn't even cross his mind. He recognized his surroundings—or rather, he recognized the objects therein—and the thoughts they carried with them made his skin crawl.

_It looks Midgardian._

Loki was not so quick to believe that he was actually on Midgard, though. For all he knew, this was something the Allfather had conjured to get a glimpse of how his captive's brain worked.

_Fool. Chambers are chambers, and a cage is a cage; the contents make little difference._

He sat up, bed sheets pooling around his hips while his hands braced against the mattress as a means of support. It took only a moment or two to assess the situation, and once he was confident that the room was completely empty, he began to slide towards the edge, swinging his legs out over the side and placing both feet on the ground.

_My clothing is Midgardian as well. However—_he gave it a quick sniff_—it is most certainly washed and fresh. It's not luxurious, but I wouldn't exactly call it the clothing of a prisoner, either. It is, at the very least, comfortable and of a tolerable color scheme._

Shaking his head, he slowly rose to his feet and tested out his balance as well as the extent of control he had over his body, flexing his fingers and shifting from foot to foot in an attempt to find some sort of hidden injury he had yet to discover. This continued for several minutes, his shoulders rolling, neck cracking, arms stretching, toes wiggling, and back bending several times each until he was convinced that he had not been poisoned or cursed.

_My body may be sound, but my magic is not. I cannot feel its presence and—_

His thoughts came to an abrupt halt as the door to the room swung inward, revealing the Man out of Time as well as the hallway that lay beyond. It looked familiar, though it was not Asgardian in any way, and Loki couldn't help but think that perhaps he truly was on Midgard.

The Captain of America, who was not in his typical outfit of spangles and stripes, motioned for Loki to exit the room with him, standing aside and holding the door ajar with one arm.

Loki's eyes wandered over him carefully, brows arching in disbelief. "I believe it unwise to take the advice of my adversaries." His fingers subconsciously curled around the sheets on the bed behind him.

"You can walk, or you can be carried." The Captain's voice was stern and clipped, his eyes turning to ice as he stared the other down. "What's it gonna be, Loki?"

Chewing the inside of his cheek, Loki pretended to ponder the situation, but the obvious choice was to walk. It left a certain amount of dignity at his disposal, and should there be an opportunity to run, his chances would certainly be higher if he wasn't slung over the other man's shoulder.

"So impatient, Captain." Loki started to walk slowly, never once allowing his eyes to leave the other's face. "I was just being cautious, that's all."

Steve—or at least, that's what Loki remembered his civilian name to be—waited until the god of mischief was just beyond the doorframe to snap it shut and urge him down the hall to the left. Loki complied without any trouble, taking the other's bitter silence as an excuse to look at his surroundings and see if he could pinpoint exactly where on Midgard he was.

_There I go, assuming things are one way when they could be another way entirely. I still don't know for certain that I am, indeed, on Midgard. _He frowned slightly, taking another look around as he was directed down a side path. _In fact, if this keeps up, I may never know where I am for certain. There isn't a window in sight._

"I assume that you are leading me to my execution, but I have a question surrounding the circumstances." He gave the other a pleasant but intentionally sarcastic smile. "Should I ask you, or should I wait until I see someone who's a little bit livelier?"

Steve didn't respond.

"Oh, Captain, I believe you still have some thawing to do. You're being rather cold, don't you think?" He chuckled softly, feigning amusement at his own little joke.

Still nothing from Steve.

_What does it mean, though? Was he ordered to keep quiet in order to avoid my traps? Or is this an illusion set by someone who doesn't know the personalities and behaviors of Earth's Mightiest Heroes well enough to imitate them?_

Loki once again allowed a scowl to twist the corners of his mouth, tension running across his shoulders and into his neck. He didn't like the uncertainty of the situation, but there was little he could do to change things at this point. He couldn't develop a plan if he didn't have any information, and he wouldn't be getting any information unless he got outside or found somebody who talked, and he wouldn't be able to get outside or find somebody who talked unless he had a plan, and so the cycle went.

"Stop."

Loki looked over his shoulder at the sudden command and slowed to a stop, gradually turning to face his guide completely. _It's my turn to be silent. Maybe it will coax him into speaking._

Unfortunately, it didn't look like Steve was changing his tune, he was simply plucking choice notes out of necessity. He had Loki's attention, so it was unnecessary to speak anymore, and Steve seemed quite content to stand there in absolute stillness, staring at the wall.

Loki also stared at the wall, noting the door-shaped indentation and the glowing buttons set to the side. It looked vaguely familiar, and was probably a piece of equipment native to Midgard, but Loki hadn't the slightest idea what it was for. _I wouldn't be surprised if it were a door, but where are the handles? He hasn't done anything but push a button._

Suddenly, the two metal panels that made up the alleged door slid to their respective sides, revealing a small square room with a mirror on the ceiling and lights on the floor.

"Ahem."

Emerald eyes snapped over to look at Steve, who was watching Loki with an expectant expression on his face. Figuring the soldier wanted him to step inside, he began the short walk into the alcove, bearing equal amounts of dignity and apprehension. Steve followed him in, and Loki opted for standing near an assortment of buttons that he deemed to be the control panel.

_Interrogation? _He looked around the room for a hatch or a small door that would open at the command of the buttons Steve was now pressing. _But it's so small…_

He didn't expect the room to move.

Breaking composure for a brief moment, he grabbed onto the nearby handrail and shifted stance to catch his balance, muscles going taught at the sensation of suspension the situation brought.

"It's just an elevator." Steve spoke softly and plainly, glancing at Loki with an unusual mix of sympathy and suspicion dancing in his eyes.

Loki was quick to stare the other down, squaring his shoulders in an attempt to display a confidence that was less than skin deep. His enemies were present, watching his every move, and the last thing he needed was them believing he was weak. "I know that."

Steve arched a single brow. "You know about elevators." It was a statement, but the heavy tone of disbelief made it sound like a question.

_I got him to talk. _This was good, even if Loki wasn't fond of the mortal questioning him, and if he could keep things moving, perhaps he could get a little more information about his current predicament, and thus, make moves to plan and execute an escape.

"Yes, of course. I've been to Midgard before, you know."

"Thor's been here five times. He still doesn't understand elevators," was the quick retort.

Loki didn't miss a beat, a wry smile curling the corners of his mouth. "Thor and I are two very different people."

"You mean Thor doesn't wander from realm to realm trying to dominate different races?" There was false humor in the man's voice, but it lacked the bitterness necessary to be a direct insult. "Although, there was something about a planet with frost giants."

"Oh?" Loki tilted his head to the side, curiosity lighting his eyes while he began to process the information internally. _What do mortals know of frost giants? Thor could have told them, but he would have little to tell them other than his attempted triumph, and it is unlikely that he would deliberately share a tale of shame and defeat with his comrades._

The elevator jerked to a halt, and the doors were sliding open in a matter of seconds. This time around, Loki managed to limit his reaction to a slight loss of balance, and he strode out with a regained sense of confidence. He was a fast learner—next time he wouldn't be caught off guard by the moving metal box.

"Stop." Steve stepped out after him and gave him a pointed look, his shoulders squared just as tightly as Loki's. "Don't get too far ahead of me."

"Aye." He ignored the withering glare that was cast in his direction, choosing instead to make note of the more hospitable environment. Unlike the previous hall of shimmering metal and blinding fluorescent lights, these corridors were painted with a warm, olive color and adorned with tan carpeting.

"So," the god began, following Steve down the left-hand hall. "You have heard tales of the monsters that inhabit the frozen wastelands of Jotunheim. I assume this is because of Thor. Well, that and the silly legends you have written down over the ages." Loki delicately folded his hands behind his back, painting a gentle smile across his features. "What stories has he regaled you with?"

Steve glanced at him only briefly, keeping his eyes trained on the path in front of him. "Just one." He kept walking, shoulders squared and lips a firm, thin line, all previous signs of openness gone. "He told us how he got banished, and that was it."

Loki couldn't ignore the flood of relief that washed over him upon hearing those words, but he didn't let it show on his face. It was bad enough that his origins shamed him to the point where he didn't want anyone—not even a race as low as the mortals—to know about it, but the thought of these lowlifes knowing he had those kinds of secrets at all was almost worse.

"I see. If that's the case, then he must have talked about me, as well."

Steve didn't look at him this time. "That would make sense."

Loki said nothing, his hands rubbing against each other out of habit. _He's completely closed up again. It won't do any good to press him for information right now. _So, the raven-haired trickster turned his attention to other things, such as searching for a window that would let him peer into the outside world for a moment. Not knowing what realm he was really in was killing him.

"We're here."

Bright green eyes snapped back to the super soldier, tension travelling across his shoulders when he saw Steve holding a door open for him. _Perhaps this is why he got so quiet. _One foot extended, and then the other followed it, trepidation lurking behind a veil of apathy. Slowly, carefully, honed in to every aspect of his surroundings, he entered the room.

"Loki!"

Lips curled into a smile, hands spreading delicately to gesture at the other people present in the room, all of them more familiar than he would have liked. "I will admit, as soon as I saw the good Captain, I had a nagging intuition that you would be at the end of this labyrinth. Tell me, is this something Odin concocted, or is this a justice of your own creation?"

"Neither." Director Fury's voice answered him before Thor had a chance, and Loki immediately placed all of his attention on the man standing off to the side. "It's a compromise."

"Between whom?"

Fury gestured to the blonde-haired thunder god sitting just a few feet away, lined on both sides by his fellow heroes. "Him, myself, and your old man."

"He is not my father," the prisoner growled, the outburst no longer requiring thought. "I asked for no compromise." He looked at Thor then, eyes still narrowed. His brother was naïve and childish, not to be trusted with matters of justice where he was emotionally involved.

"B… Loki, you have not even heard us out yet." Thor glanced at the man on his right, the beast in disguise, and then looked forward again, his eyes betraying nervousness that was not native to the thunderer.

"I need not listen." Loki's tone was crisp and business like, with just enough bitterness to sharpen the edge. "You should not have gotten involved. Where anyone of emotional value to you is concerned, your sense of justice is weak and fractured, Odinson."

"True." The Director cut in once again, pulling away from the wall he had been leaning against and walking over to where Loki and Steve were. "But mine isn't. Most of the people in this room would gladly see you dead, and since we live in a democracy, you'd be much better off appealing to your brother's idealistic mercy than cutting it down. We'll gladly send you back if you change his mind."

Loki said nothing, not even bothering to correct the man on his non-existent brotherhood with the big blonde. He looked at Thor long and hard, scanning the other's face for any sign of that familiar sentiment. Weak, wide-eyed, hopeful, pleading sentiment. There was none, and while Thor seemed sympathetic, he seemed much harder towards Loki than he had been the last time they saw each other.

"Tell me, then." He picked at his thumb with the opposite hand, remaining in a rigid and professional stance. "What is this compromise?"

Steve walked away at this point, joining his still silent comrades at their table. Fury didn't say anything either, and Loki felt a fleeting ghost of fear, banishing it the moment he was aware of its presence. He didn't speak, either. He refused to press for an answer he didn't want to hear in the first place.

Finally, Tony's chair started to swivel and creak, his legs finding their way up onto the table and crossing at the ankles. "We're placing you under advanced house arrest."

Loki's brow creased.

"My tower is big enough and advanced enough to keep you in one place, especially now that you don't have your voodoo powers. We," he gestured to those present at the table, "live here, so we'll be able to keep an eye on you. On top of that…" He let his voice trail, pointing to Bruce and quickly losing himself in a flood of notifications on his cellular device. Either that, or he was playing a game. Either was plausible in Loki's mind.

The doctor adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat before speaking. "You'll have daily hour-long sessions with me so we can try and figure out some psychological solutions for you." That was vague. Loki didn't like it, but Bruce continued speaking. "As time goes on, we'll figure out if we need to increase or decrease visits, and other people may be pulled into our sessions from time to time, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

Loki opened his mouth to speak, but Thor interrupted him. _Something familiar, at least._

"Most importantly, Loki," he stated, standing up and bracing his arms against the table. "During your stay on Midgard, you will repay the debts that you owe to the citizens of New York City. You will serve the community by putting your talents to good use while you are here. I will not allow you to become stagnant."

Loki calmed the rage in his belly with a slow and careful succession of inhales and exhales. His hands curled into fists briefly, but he forced them to relax a moment later. _I have to maintain the upper hand. I have to stay calm, and I have to appear completely unconcerned. _

Giving his brother a mildly curious look, he changed the subject entirely. "What did Odin suggest to make you devise such a scheme?"

"Father intended to have you executed."

Loki could smell the lie a thousand miles away, but he let it slide for the moment, choosing instead to curl his mouth into a smirk. "I would have preferred you let him have his way."

Thor blinked, opening his mouth but having nothing to say.

Agent Barton, who had remained quiet through the entire meeting, spoke in the older god's place. "Then I guess it sucks to be you, doesn't it?"

Just like that, Loki's fate was sealed.


	3. Chapter 3

"You need to take a shower."

That was what Thor had said, and most of his comrades had readily agreed. Loki was looking worse for the wear, and it wasn't just because of his time spent behind bars. It looked like had been neglecting the notion of hygiene for quite some time. He was dirty, greasy, and had an appearance that was, in general, largely unkempt.

"Go back to your room, and take the door on the left."

This was the advice of Tony Stark, owner and co-designer of the tower. At the time, Loki had assumed he was being informed of the location of a bathtub or pool of some sort, but as he gazed down upon the rounded rectangle and the metal contraptions therein, he began to have his doubts.

_I can see how this basin could serve as a bathtub, but how do they suppose I'll get water into it? _Emerald hues flashed from one end of the tub to the other, lips pursing slightly as his fingers came out to rest on the spigot. _This contraption most likely pours water into the basin, but how do I get water to come out of it? _His gaze travelled up as his thoughts continued. _And what is that hanging circle supposed to do?_

Sighing softly, he took a step back and surveyed the situation as a whole. _Knob, spigot, hanging disk, tub, drain. _Deciding that the two most likely to be related were the knob and spigot, he started to fiddle with the former, feeling a small sense of accomplishment when a steady flow of water poured from the mouth of the pipe.

"Alright. I have water." He tilted his head back, but the disk was no different than it had been before. He stuck a finger under the flow of water but found it was only lukewarm, and he wondered if there was a way to alter the temperature, and if there was, where such a control would be.

_It really shouldn't be this complicated. Get water, put the water in a large container, and take a bath. _He sighed. _It could be worse, I suppose. _

So, silently admonishing humanity for complicating one of the simplest rituals in history, Loki continued on his relentless quest for hygiene.

He was successful, albeit delayed, and in little more than two hours, he was standing before the mirror and running a plastic comb through his hair. He knew he would wind up cutting off the couple of inches that were too tangled to salvage, but it felt much better to have a clean scalp. Well, a mostly clean. He could still feel a thin layer of grime coating him from head to toe.

On top of that, his clothing was growing more irritating by the second. He didn't like the so-called pants that were in his room, and while the shirts were very comfortable, they were also very thin and flimsy. There was no chance of the Midgardian attire protecting him from even the smallest of attacks, and that was a feeling he did not like in the least.

_I will feign gratitude, at least. I have to gain enough trust for them to look the other way… and when they do, I'll leave. _What he was going to do after the fact, seeing as his magic was sealed and he had no way of concealing his identity from Earth's occupants, he wasn't sure. But he wouldn't stay, bound and humiliated and patronized. He refused.

Finally satisfied with the amount of hair that had been detangled, he sought out a device with which he could cut off the matted ends. Unfortunately, there were no knives, no razors, and no blades anywhere in the room that he could find.

_Of course. They wouldn't trust me with something I could use as a weapon. _He sighed and stared at his reflection in the mirror, almost as if he thought they could brainstorm and come up with a plan together. _I wonder if—_

"If I might make a suggestion, Mr. Laufeyson—" Loki nearly jumped out of his skin, "—there is a pair of scissors in the top drawer to your left."

The voice seemed to come from thin air, and given its lack of an introduction, Loki was left to scan the ceiling with a pounding heart, his lungs refusing to take in air until he felt that he was alone again. _A guard? A spy? But where? _He slowly released the death grip he didn't realize he had on the sink.

"Show yourself immediately," he ordered, squaring his shoulders and continuing to look around with narrowed eyes.

"I cannot complete that function. Mr. Stark has not programmed me to be seen, only heard."

Loki's lips twitched ever so slightly, confusion creasing his brow. "Stark…?" Oh. Of course. "You are to keep an eye on me, then, as would a jailer or warden."

This time the voice responded in a more casual manner, almost as if it was processing the fact that Loki was not a guest and did not need to be treated with any sort of formality. It made the god uncomfortable—he was being analyzed by a pair of eyes he could neither see nor scrutinize in return.

"I have been ordered to do that, yes." There was a beat. "I operate throughout the entire building, and I am accessible from the Mark 53. I run the house and keep everything in order. My name is Jarvis."

Loki nodded slowly, turning back to the sink and pretending to comb his hair some more, not wanting any suspicious activity to be reported to his captors. "I see. You are a servant, then."

"Yes, in a sense."

Loki took a slow breath, silent and invisible, reaching out towards the drawer the servant had suggested earlier. Sifting through the contents, he found a metal object that he had passed over in his first search due to its blunted edges.

"Separate the holes, and the blades will come apart. Push them back together to cut."

Loki seized one loop in each hand and pulled, watching as the two pieces came apart. While dull on the outside, the inside was plenty sharp, and as he pulled the broad ends back together, he saw how the machine was supposed to work.

"Curious," he mumbled, shifting them to one hand and practicing the manipulation with his fingers. "Servant, are you able to see me?"

"Yes."

"Are you able to see the entire house?"

"That is classified, Mr. Laufeyson."

Fingers halted, eyes narrowing. "Do not call me that."

"That is classified, Mr. Odinson."

His hand started to shake. "My name is Loki."

"That is classified, Loki."

Loki didn't say anything.

Slowly, the task of hair-trimming was resumed, and the minutes ticked by in near silence, the only sound being that of the scissor blades coming together and clumps of wet hair falling into the sink.

_Why Laufeyson? I would expect Thor to tell them my last name was Odinson, but Laufeyson? If they intended to use Jotunheim against me, Thor would have told them that it was a pointless endeavor. Given his obsession with our past brotherhood, that would have been the perfect chance to put my surname in as Odinson and nothing else. So why? What purpose did it serve?_

It didn't become any clearer no matter how long he ruminated on it, and by the time his hair was a full six inches shorter, he decided to let the thought die. He had successfully taught the servant the title by which he wanted to be referred to, and that was where the matter ended.

"Servant," he started again, brushing through his remaining hair and throwing the rest into the available trash can. "What is the time?"

"8:49 p.m."

Loki pursed his lips. There was no point in asking for the day because he didn't know on which Midgardian day he had arrived, but regardless, he could tell he had been in the Avengers' custody for some time. Or at least, he doubted they had developed an intricate and complicated plan, prepared a room for him, programmed the house servant, and transported him from another realm all in one afternoon.

However, despite the recent and rather lengthy spell of unconsciousness he was certain he had endured, he could feel a familiar heaviness settling over his eyelids, and there was nothing in him that wanted to even try staying awake. He was fairly clean and comfortable, and the thought of a soft, warm bed was tantalizing at the very least.

_Perhaps I can read for a bit… and then doze off._

He didn't exactly like any of the books that had been placed on the shelves in his room, but it would at least give him something to do, and reading was an enjoyable pastime even if he wasn't all that thrilled to learn about the history and culture of the miserable rock he was stranded on. After all, a book was a book.

Books were good, period.

Walking back into the living space, Loki made his way over to the small bookshelf and pulled down a historical tome concerning the Midgardian World War Two. From what he understood, this was the conflict that birthed the supersoldier who, somehow, was still alive in the time of the Avengers. Of all the books on the shelf, that one had the most potential to give him information he could use against his adversaries.

_Let's see what it is that makes the humans slaughter each other in droves._

* * *

"Loki… Loki… Loki, wake up."

Green eyes snapped wide open the second Loki realized there was a hand on his shoulder. Every muscle in the god's body immediately tensed, his arm arching up to strike whoever had been foolish enough to take hold of his person while he slept.

He made contact with the hand of one Captain America, gloved fingers closing tightly around his wrist as the voice came again.

"Good morning, Loki."

Loki recoiled sharply, rolling over onto his back and pulling his arm, a dark expression on his face. "Release me, mortal."

"That's not your call," the soldier calmly replied.

Loki's eyes narrowed further, the ensnared hand curling into a fist as he jerked on his arm yet again. It was pointless—he knew the condition he was in, and without his magic he couldn't overpower the stronger, serum-strengthened male—but that didn't stop him from trying.

"I said, release me!"

Steve arched an eyebrow and, after another moment of thought, let go.

Loki rubbed at the joint absentmindedly, growling under his breath. He hated the way Steve looked at him. Like he was a charity case. Like he was a nuisance. Like he was a stubborn child with whom it was easier to agree than fight.

"Do not touch me." It was the only thing he could think to say that sounded even remotely threatening. _I don't have locks on my doors. I cannot keep anyone out. I have no armor. I'm completely exposed._

"That's not your call, either." The Captain stepped back, placing his fists on his hips and gazing down at the drowsy captive with disapproval in his eyes. "You need to get up. You're meeting with Dr. Banner in thirty minutes."

"I did not agree to any of this." He glared. "I wish to speak with Thor."

Steve didn't waver. "We didn't for your opinion on this." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I'll be waiting. If you're not out in twenty minutes, I'm coming in to get you." And after a moment spent giving the other an intimidating stare, the Man out of Time turned around and stepped into the hall, closing the door gently behind him.

Loki ran a hand through his hair, sighing loudly. _How troublesome, _he thought, torso rising from the mattress until the closed door was dead center in his line of vision. _He won't leave me be, I'm sure of it, and with these limited quarters and no magic, I've little to stop him with. _On top of that, he had no desire to be manhandled by the Midgardian, so it was best to play along.

For now, anyway.

Rising slowly, he allowed himself a moment to survey the room before seeking out an actual article of clothing. It took a while—prisoner or not, appearance were important—but eventually he was dressed and observing himself in the full length mirror that hung on the wall.

"It looks fine."

Loki ignored the remark, watching the other man's reflection with a smirk pulling at his mouth. "Have twenty minutes passed already, Captain?"

"Eighteen."

Loki chuckled, watching the other man's reflection carefully. Having his back to the enemy unnerved him, but as long as Steve didn't leave the range of vision the mirror provided, Loki could swallow the sensations of vulnerability in order to appear indifferent.

"So cold, Captain. And here I thought you were starting to like me."

Steve glared. "I said the outfit looks fine, so let's go. Now."

Loki turned slowly, drawing the action out for as long as he could. "Why so tense?" He blinked twice, wide eyes radiating innocence and sincerity. "With your strength and your shield, you have nothing for fear from me."

"Let's go." Steve turned and opened the door, stepping outside and willing the dethroned prince to follow.

_You are not as soft as you seem. _Loki walked into the hallway, suffering a brief spell of deja vu before falling in step beside the soldier. "Are you always this… businesslike?"

"Only with war criminals."

"Such harsh words, Captain."

"They're warranted."

Loki bit back a retort, deciding that now was not the time to battle his opponents with his wit, but rather, to push the boundaries and see where their weaknesses were buried. He didn't need to win every battle in order to do that.

Evidently, Captain America felt the same way, and they didn't engage in any more conversation until they had arrived at the appropriate floor and were on their way to Dr. Banner's office.

"How many years have passed since you last saw me?"

Steve quirked a brow, surprised by the question but hardly annoyed. "Somewhere around… two years, I think."

Loki inhaled slowly. "Two years… it feels like yesterday. I suppose you've never had that problem, being a mortal and all."

"I have… from time to time. It depends on what happened and how long ago it really was."

Stopping just outside the door to Banner's office, Steve turned to Loki and gave him a long, hard look before offering him a final piece of advice. "Loki, you're here because Thor wants to give you a second chance. We have nothing to gain from you, and you don't have any advantages you can hold over us. So, if you would, take my advice and actually _try _to cooperate. Otherwise, you'll be back in your old cell before you can blink."

He stared back in mock innocence. "Are you certain? I can blink very quickly, dear Captain."

Steve didn't smile and didn't say a word, throwing the door open and ushering Loki inside none too gently. As soon as the god was over the threshold, the soldier pulled the door shut, and then it was only a doctor and his patient, a pair of very human-looking monsters, a force for good and a force for evil. It was only Loki and Dr. Banner.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up."

Loki glared unwaveringly, hatred burning through his veins at the very sight of the man who had the power to bring the god down to his knees.

"Shall we begin?"


	4. Chapter 4

Tension.

It was thick in the room, almost tangible, and it was accompanied by an array of negative vibes that seemed to flow off of the fallen god's body with a natural ease. Distrust, anger, indignation, defensiveness, and even a small amount of wariness and hesitant caution. Just as naturally as a cat had whiskers and the sky had clouds, Loki had this dark and threatening aura around him, eyes scanning the room for several moments after his entry.

"Did you sleep well?" Bruce knew there was no need for small talk, but he wanted to get Loki into a mildly more open mindset before bombarding him with psychologically distressing questions. They had a lot to talk about, and from the look of things, Loki was still evaluating the situation.

"Well enough." Loki's reply came out short and clipped, tension travelling through his muscles, showing only briefly in his shoulders and fists before he commanded his body to assume its usual stance.

"Things have changed pretty drastically for you." Bruce continued, undeterred by the other's attitude. "Midgard and Asgard are two very different places, not that I need to tell you that, and you've been thrown into a pretty sticky situation. How are you holding up?"

Like a track on repeat, Loki replied, eyes still carefully examining the room. "Well enough."

"Good to hear it." Bruce gestured to the chair across from him. "Why don't you take a seat?"

Emerald hues flickered to the chair and then to Bruce's face. "I prefer to stand."

"We're going to be here for an hour." Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "Just thought you would want to rest your feet."

Loki didn't move. He was no doubt recalling his last encounter with the Other Guy—one that had ended with him in a human-shaped crater—and was pushing every ounce of self-control he had into making sure he didn't cause the beast to emerge.

Or maybe that was Bruce's self-depreciating thought processes talking again.

"Loki, I'm just here to talk."

There was a pause, the god scrutinizing the doctor for several moments before finally making the necessary steps and seating himself in the cushioned chair. He sat with a confident, regal sort of air, though Bruce couldn't help but sense some anxiety behind the stiff back and squared shoulders.

"So," the doctor cracked a small smile, "tell me about your childhood."

Loki's eyes widened slightly, his expression one of utter disbelief, and his body tilted away from his makeshift therapist in a show of repulsion. "I beg your pardon?" He took a quick glance at the door. "I am not going to spend an hour of my day for the next several years talking about my _childhood_. What utter nonsense. What on earth would you even learn from such information?"

Bruce's grin only expanded, though he kept himself from laughing for the sake of progress. "It was just a small joke, Loki. It's sort of a stereotypical line. If you ever see a comic strip of…" He trailed. Loki wouldn't know what a comic strip was. "It's like if you're watching a comedy and…" Loki wouldn't know what that was either. "…you know what, never mind. It was a stupid joke."

"Indeed." Loki crossed his arms over his chest, resuming his previous expression of aloofness.

Shaking his head, he steered them back to the main topic. "You made a good point though. Let's talk about current, relevant things." He paused. "You're not going to be going anywhere for a while, and there isn't much to do in that room. What sort of thing would keep you occupied during the day?"

Loki regarded the question with narrowed eyes, his gaze wandering over the doctor's form before once more darting around the room. Of all the negative emotions he had presented when first arriving, suspicion was the one that was in an overwhelming amount of control now.

"Well," he started after another minute or so of silence, "I wouldn't know, now would I? As you just said, Asgard and Midgard are very different."

_Smart. He's treating this like an interrogation, trying to use my questions to gather information for his own use. It's clever, and certainly wise given his situation, but I need to move him away from that manner of thinking._

"True." Bruce conceded to the younger—or perhaps older, depending on the scale—man's argument. "But there are similarities, I'm sure. You could list off a few things you enjoy, and then I can present something that would follow the same basic principles."

Loki gave him a long, hard stare, but the doctor turned psychiatrist didn't falter. He stared back with half the hardness and twice the determination. It didn't seem to do much to change Loki's resistance, but it did prompt a reply, unhelpful though it was.

"Isn't this supposed to be an interrogation of some sort?"

Bruce shook his head. "No. Like we discussed yesterday, you're receiving therapy sessions. Right now, we're just getting to know each other."

Loki's eyes narrowed just slightly, his head tilting to one side ever-so-slightly. "You are wasting your time. You would sooner beat answers out of me than coax them—I am not so easily persuaded."

Nodding his head, almost in a gesture of surrender, Bruce picked up a thin stack of papers from the table in front of him. "In that case, how about we go over a list of things that might be somewhat similar to the things you had on Midgard? If something sounds familiar to you, we'll look into it."

He watched Loki's face, both men staring at each other unwaveringly, waiting to see who would show their hand first. Bruce kept his lips in a straight line, and Loki's face was on of total mistrust and nothing else.

Finally, after at least two minutes of staring, Loki spoke.

"It changes nothing."

"We'll see."

Loki glared.

Bruce smiled.

* * *

Green eyes bored relentlessly into the thin stack of papers pinched between the other's fingertips. It seemed the doctor was serious about the list, and with every moment that passed, Loki couldn't help feeling a sense of… well, it was difficult to pinpoint with a name, but it was something akin to disappointment and apathy. He had been expecting torture, interrogation, questioning, anger, hatred, harsh words, _something._

Something that wasn't this.

"It's a pretty vague list, but if we find one or two things that you like, we can look for activities that fall on similar lines. For example, books." Bruce paused. "Do they have those on Asgard?"

Loki's jaw twitched, insulted by the blatant mockery within the question. "Doctor, are you aware of a realm where they do _not _have books?"

"Up until a few years ago, I wasn't aware that realms other than mine existed. I think it's safe to say I don't know which cultures and peoples have things I'm familiar with and which do not." Bruce arched and eyebrow, a small grin teasing at the corner of his mouth. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Silence was the answer Loki offered, his arms coming up to fold over his chest. He didn't believe the beast's words for a second. Bruce had access to Thor, who knew far more than the basic concepts of Asgardian culture, and he had no reason to trust Loki's words to be true, meaning there was also no reason why he shouldn't have covered the basics with Thor before this meeting.

"Yes, we have books."

"Do you like them?"

Tension slipped in between the god's shoulders, drawing the muscles into a knot that began to ache in a matter of seconds. _Curse this mortal form… even without the presence of injury, it manages to find itself weakening. _He blinked once, slowly, and leveled his gaze at the other.

"I don't have an opinion on them."

Bruce offered up a small frown, confusion creasing his brow and drawing his glasses towards the end of his nose. "That's a little hard to believe. Most people can't have one solid opinion on books as a whole because there are so many kinds, let alone _not _have an opinion on books at all."

"Asgardians do not look to books unless they contain financial documents or important historical facts." Loki waited until the doctor glanced down at his sheet to cast his gaze around the room, seeking a window for the twentieth time and finding none. "It is unusual for someone, especially a man, to read for leisure."

Despite his hope that such information would be enough to deter, Bruce pressed on, his head shaking back and forth as he began to speak once more.

"I didn't ask what Asgard thought of books, I asked what you thought of books." Bruce set down the papers and extended his hand ticking off the various types of books on his fingers. "There are dozens of different genres to pick from, too. Mysteries, action and adventure, horror, suspense, biographies, autobiographies, fiction, historical, historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy—"

"It matters not."

Dr. Banner spent a long moment looking at him, and Loki couldn't help the slight twinge of fear he felt, searching the other's eyes for any sign of green. Despite himself, despite the numerous times he tried to forget his humiliating defeat in this very tower, he could still feel his body slamming one way and then the next into the rock.

_And that was when the healing properties and fortification of a god was still within me. Were the beast to treat this form with the same vigor, I would be dead in seconds with no chance of revival._

He swallowed discreetly, his foot sliding backwards just an inch or so. "It matters not," he repeated. "Regardless, as you have already mentioned, some books have already been stored in my room. Should I take a sudden interest in reading, I can explore those before we make an attempt at discussing…" he paused, eyes drifting upward briefly, "…shanra."

"Genre." Bruce gave him a smile, adjusting his glasses. "Genre just describes a subset of a larger group, usually an art form. Dance, music, books, crafts, movies, shows, theatre, and various other groups are divided up by genres, which give a little detail about what you can expect from that particular piece of art."

Loki went over a mental checklist and adjusted his posture accordingly, more concerned with keeping up appearances than with what Bruce had to say. "I see." With that, he allowed his gaze to wander to his hands, nails scraping absentmindedly at the dry, somewhat dirty skin.

"You really should take a shower," Bruce advised, gesturing to the way Loki was scratching.

Loki gave him a cold stare in return. "I did."

For a brief moment, shock registered on the doctor's features, but he quickly traded it in for an expression of bewildered curiosity. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it doesn't look like you did."

He wasn't sure how to take that the _right _way. "I did." He paused, recalling the state he had woken up in the day before. "I felt clean whenever I woke up yesterday, and then I showered in the evening. Still, I have spent two years in prison—there is only so much water can do."

"Soap isn't working?"

There was a moment of silence.

Loki blinked. "Pardon?"

Bruce blinked. "Soap?"

"I am unfamiliar with the workings of your soap."

Another window of time passed in absolute silence, the human's features twisting with confusion. Loki simply had nothing more to say. He had no idea what Midgardians used to bathe themselves, but even on Asgard he had preferred magic over suds for hygienic purposes.

"I… do they have soap on Asgard?"

Loki was not as offended the second time, seeing as their conversation was probably what lead him to such a question. "Of course. I simply never used it. I used magic to save time and resources."

Bruce nodded slowly. "Magic... which you can't use anymore. So, you didn't think to improvise with soap."

The god shot him dark look but said nothing, unwilling to admit that yes, he had thought of it, but he couldn't identify what bottles held what soaps and what they were to be used for. Even with the assistance of labels, it seemed that the soaps on Midgard each had different uses and were meant for separate areas of cleansing. Loki was not about to accidentally put toe soap on his face or use the multiple hair products in the incorrect order.

"You disagree?"

Loki still said nothing.

"If you don't talk to me, I can't help you."

Still nothing.

"If I can't help you, you're going to need a lot more showers."

Silence. Cold, angry, indignant silence.

Bruce sighed, one hand running through his hair and stopping to adjust his glasses on the way back down. "Alright. If you want to take fifty showers, you are more than welcome to." Then he cracked a smile. "But don't come complaining to me when Tony gives you an earful about the water bill."

For a moment, Loki allowed his brow to crease, confusion painting the forefront of his mind as he pondered what a water bill could possibly be. Soon, however, he abandoned the train of thought in order to keep the session moving.

"You had a list, I believe?"

Bruce took the hint and glanced at the list again. "Do you have any musical interests?"

"No." Growing up, he had studied the melodies and musical patterns that had useful effects when combined with magic, but other than that, he had never taken much of an interest.

"What about crafting?"

Loki arched an eyebrow. "You would have to elaborate."

Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "There are lots of different crafting hobbies. Leatherworking, woodworking, whittling, metalworking, model building, paper crafting, and even letter writing or calligraphy could all technically count as kinds of crafting."

_Your questions make no sense. _Loki was, of course, interested in crafting things. Magic in itself was a kind of craft, though many on Asgard would beg to differ. One worked hard, learned the ropes, and mixed and matched different elements, reshaping them until the desired result was achieved. _But I'm a prisoner and war criminal, not a guest._

"They are all familiar terms," well, that was a lie, "however, none of them are of any interest to me."

Bruce nodded his head, writing down a few notes beside the general topic and preparing to continue down the list. Loki inwardly sighed. It might not have been torture, but he almost would have preferred that to this. At least if he were being strung up by his thumbs, he would feel like he was prepared for whatever came next. The abnormal behavior, the lack of hostility, the level-headed composure—it had to be fake, which meant there was a lie to be uncovered. It was mentally exhausting, forcing him to keep his mind and body focused at all times.

_Unless that's the plan. Mentally drain me with the intent of actually behaving in a civil manner, only to turn the tables after I've gotten too weary to focus. Or, perhaps they assume I'll think this way, and in fact, they'll be starting the torture in less than a week._

He inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to relax the stiffness in his shoulders and letting out a quiet hum when he realized that Dr. Banner had not continued onto the next item of interest.

"What?" he snapped.

"You seem unsettled. Is something the matter?"

Loki stiffened slightly, once again rubbing at his palms. "Am I supposed to be comfortable?" he questioned, preferring to leave the task of answering to his adversaries.

"I don't know about comfortable. Like I said, you've been through a lot of changes within the past few days, so you're bound to be stressed out." Bruce paused, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his stomach. "I'm sure you're having a hard time believing that earth wouldn't send you to death row."

Loki smirked. "You could say that." He inhaled slowly, pretending to take a moment to consider his word choice. "I did not make many friends the last time I was here, least of all with you and your allies. To grant me such a lenient sentence would not be wise nor rational."

Bruce's brow creased slightly. "Why not?"

The question caught Loki off-guard.

"What do you mean 'why not'?" He scowled. "Sparing me from Asgardian punishment won't do anything to help your realm or deter me from attacking it in the future, and as far as rationality is concerned, who gives aid to their enemies and expects no downfall? It's foolish."

The man only offered a soft smile. "Some of the most famous heroes of Midgard became famous for forgiving and helping their enemies. It's not unheard of, and regardless of whether or not it will be beneficial to us, it won't hurt us, either. You can't leave this tower, and even if you did, you don't have the power to do any more damage than an average human."

It stung, the blatant reminder of his human weakness spoken so casually from the lips of a man he had once considered beneath him. He had called him a mindless beast, but the words only came back to haunt him as the tables were turned and he found himself several levels lower than those he had scorned just a handful of years ago.

"Loki?" Bruce spoke once the silence became thick, the lack of reaction leaving him to assume something needed to be addressed.

"I understand your reasoning." The words were ground out between clenched teeth, the former god's jaw setting and refusing to move again as rage enveloped him from the inside out.

_Disgusting, pitiful creatures—all of them! Thor, you bumbling oaf, what did you hope to gain by bringing me here? By handing me over to your precious allies? You could have sent me to the axe with my dignity, at the very least, but instead I've been taken even lower than the scum that inhabits this mud rock! Is this your idea of redemption, brother? Laughable!_

Bruce was speaking, and somewhere in the back of Loki's mind, he knew he should have been paying attention, but he couldn't. He couldn't get past the torrential thoughts blurred together by a current of red.

"Loki!"

He tried to hide the startled jump that racked his body, eyes narrowing as he met Bruce's gaze.

"You've only got fifteen more minutes. Why don't we just finish the list, and you can sleep on it, alright?"

Loki said nothing. He knew if he did, he would wind up digging himself into a very deep hole, and he couldn't afford to do that. Not now. Not when he knew so little about his situation. So he kept quiet, and he remained that way through the remainder of the list, nodding from time to time so Bruce wouldn't stop to ask whether or not he was listening.

It felt like an eternity had passed before the blessed door finally unlocked, and Loki quickly got to his feet, trying and failing to veil his eager demeanor. He turned towards the door and took two steps, coming to a halt immediately after that, his entire body going rigid.

"Not so fast, Reindeer Games."


	5. Chapter 5

Warning: Mild Innuendo/Inappropriate Banter.

* * *

"Are you sick of me already?"

The smirk that followed the words gave an air of relaxed confidence, but Tony knew better. Tension wrapped around the god's shoulders, fingers twitching at his sides, nervous movements so slight they could barely be seen.

_Well, he is the god of lies._

Gesturing to the medical case in his hand, he broke the silence, walking into the room with Steve on his heels. "We need to run some tests. Since your old man made you human—"

"He's not my father." Loki glared, every word dripping with venom.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Since Odin, King of the Floating Pipe Organs made you human, we need to be prepared for any kind of injury or illness that might come your way. I've got everything set up with the insurance company, but you have no medical records, which is suspicious and makes the doctors' work much harder than it needs to be." He set the case down on the table with a hefty thud, and Steve placed his own armload onto the table next to it.

Loki peered at the objects warily, keeping his distance but still trying to hide his discomfort from the three other men in the room. "You take such precautions with a prisoner? How… inefficient."

Shrugging, he flipped the case open to reveal a long row of tubes and syringes. "Well, we could just let you die, but where's the fun in that?"

"Oh, so you do intend to have fun." Loki arched his eyebrows, using the opening to try and regain some of his former aloofness. "I didn't realize this was that kind of arrangement, Anthony."

"I mean, it wasn't part of the plan, but I'm a pretty flexible guy."

"I prefer firm over flexible."

"Then what's that rubber band hanging between your legs?"

"Enough, both of you." Steve stepped in, drawing his arm down between the two men and giving them each a long, hard stare.

_Perfect. _Tony waved the hand away and gestured to Bruce. "Would you mind offering a hand? We've got twenty years' worth of records to make up." He stopped to look at Loki then, scowling slightly. "How old _are _you, anyway?"

"1,051."

There was a brief silence.

"I know I've been out of touch for a while," Steve started, "but that's not gonna fly on a medical record." He rubbed the back of his head, sighing. "Well… is there a kind of equivalent?"

Loki crossed his arms over his chest. "If there is, I don't know it."

Bruce spoke up then, already starting to piece together one of the many syringes from the case. "Age tends to be more of a milestone marker in most cultures." He turned to Loki, motioning for him to sit on the couch. "For example, here in America, you can drive at sixteen, vote and be a legal adult at eighteen, and drink alcohol at twenty-one. Do you have anything like that on Asgard?"

Loki sank onto the couch, watching them all with cautious eyes. "Adulthood usually comes around the nine-hundred-year mark, although it's more dependent on your skills and achievements than the number of days you've seen."

Tony, who had been silently watching since he brought up the question of age, determined that it was a bit of a sore subject for Loki, and he imagined Bruce had been realizing the same thing. _Not so much the age itself but the privilage that comes with it. What you can do just because of how long you've lived, whether or not you deserve it… am I sensing some Thor jealousy going on there?_

"Mathematically speaking," he interrupted their musings, "you would be between the ages of eighteen and twenty. Seeing as you have more lenient rules about alcohol on Asgard, we'll say you're twenty-one, just in case you ever decide to take me up on that drink I offered." He gestured to Loki's entire body. "You know, now that you don't have the muzzle on. Hard to drink with a muzzle."

Loki didn't miss a beat. "You speak from experience?"

"Not really." He shrugged. "Tied up? Yes. Muzzle? No."

"Oh? I thought—"

They both jumped, caught off guard by the sudden movement and sound of Steve slapping an antiseptic pad onto Loki's arm. "It doesn't really matter, right?" He gave the prisoner a pointed look. "We're putting your legal, Midgardian age down as twenty-one, so you'll be able to drink if and when you want. In the meantime, please relax your arm."

Bruce chuckled softly, sitting down on the coffee table and waiting until Steve had tied the rubber around Loki's arm to align the needle. "This will pinch a bit, but just stay relaxed and it'll be fine."

With Bruce watching the syringe and Steve watching Loki's free arm, Tony felt that it was an opportune time to examine his new houseguest's countenance. _Bruce said to watch for subtle tics. _He glanced over Loki's body before settling on his face again. _Nothing so far… he's tense, but he's been tense since he got here._

However, the god was growing more and more stiff, his eyes glued to the tubes of blood as they were pulled from the object sticking in his arm. Given that he had missed every single standard test and injection for the last twenty-one years of his new, fake life, there were a lot of tubes. Tony figured it was pretty overwhelming, especially for someone who had probably never been to a doctor in his life.

Tube nine, tube ten, tube eleven, tube twelve, tube—

"Stop."

Loki's hand came down on top of the syringe, and Tony immediately looked at his face. He was concealing something—that much was obvious—but the engineer wasn't quite sure what it was. Something like… fear or confusion… and definitely caused by the stack of blood samples on the table.

"You've taken enough," he said stiffly.

Bruce pointed to the empty tubes. "No, we still have some to go."

Loki shook his head, jerking when Steve placed a hand on his arm.

"Easy." Steve didn't let up on his hold. "Loki, we're not hurting you."

"I'm not a child," he snarled back.

_Did he just spit on Cap? _Tony examined the god's hands but saw nothing unusual, and it wasn't until he got all the way down to Loki's ankle that he saw it twisting back and forth on the carpet. It was a slight movement, no more than half an inch, but it was there because Loki was nervous. Tony had found the first tic. _I'm good at this. _Not that he thought he wouldn't be, of course.

"You have enough." Loki continued in the wake of silence, emeralds flashing dangerously at each man in the room with careful precision. "You can distribute what you have into the other tubes. You don't need any more. Let me go."

"Look, Hat Rack," Tony flopped onto the arm of the chair, "I know you think that humans are, like, made of glass and spider webs, but this is nothing. Granted, it's a little more than you would usually have drawn at a normal check-up, but if you're looking for something specific or don't know what you're looking for, that's a fairly normal amount." How many tubes had they drawn and examined before giving the okay for heart surgery? "You might not be a god anymore, but you aren't going to fall apart as soon as somebody blows on you, okay?"

Loki glared at him, but Tony only gave him a cocky grin in return. Bruce and Steve glanced at each other and then at the pair in front of them, the latter slowly pulling Loki's hand away from the needle. Bruce pushed in the thirteenth tube and started to draw, watching the trickster's face very carefully.

"Hat Rack?"

Loki's calm, almost congenial words cut the tension down considerably, and the three Avengers shared a small laugh.

"I think," Bruce drew the final tube and placed a piece of gauze over Loki's arm, "that Tony was referring to the horns on your helmet."

Tony held up a finger. "And the staff. If I had a statue of Loki inside the door of Stark Industries, you could put a hat on the staff, one hat on each horn, one on his hand, and—I dunno, maybe you could put a coat over his shoulders or something."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "You're a piece of work, Tony."

"Why, thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment." Shaking his head, he got up and moved to Loki's shoulder, rolling up the sleeve and cleaning the skin around his new injection site. "It's the same concept, except I'll be putting something in instead of taking it out."

He was given nothing more than a wary look and a silent stare. Steve got out of the way and joined Tony at the other end of the couch, both of them watching for any sudden or unexpected reactions.

_Pepper was right about the blue sweater._ Tony crossed his arms over his chest, inspecting the outfit Loki had picked out in case there were some magical cues hidden there as well. _Don't shrinks say that colors reflect your mood or something? Maybe he wore green because he was jealous and now he's wearing blue because he's… blue. _He blinked, shaking his head slightly to clear the thoughts before continuing his analysis.

Black slacks, black socks, and a plain, dark blue sweater. It wasn't as over the top as he'd expected—honestly, he sort of thought Loki would make a cape out of the draperies or something—but it was somehow still… Loki. Unlike Thor, who was chaotic and lively and would wear whatever was on hand without thinking twice, Loki was careful and organized, so he actually orchestrated his outfits and made an effort to look nice. Even in prison.

_Woah, that was scary. I need to step away from the psychological color wheel here. _He glanced at Loki's face again, and then interested himself in what Bruce was doing. _Still… there's only one pair of black pants, and I put them on the very bottom. Hmm…_

* * *

Loki tried not to wince as the transparent, amber fluid forced its way into his muscles, his hands itching to wring each other to pieces. _Tch… they're so obvious it's almost sickening. _He was referring, of course to the two men standing off to the side, blatantly staring at him, as if he were some spectacle on display. That was what made him nervous, what made his fingers twitch in his lap.

It _suffocated_ him.

"Loki, how are you feeling so far?"

Bruce's words pulled him from his thoughts, and he gave a quick nod to keep the man from questioning any further. He was sore and tired, but there were still a large amount of instruments left, and he thought the less he resisted, the better.

For now, anyway.

"Tony, pack this up to take to the lab, would you?" Bruce left the vials of blood to his fellow scientist and grabbed another instrument from his bag, crouching down in front of Loki's chair and affixing it to his head.

_Curious. _He had absolutely no idea what the thing was or what it was supposed to do, but from what he could see, it was a black and rubber in the shape of a Y, with metal attachments stuck on each end.

"I'm going to listen to your heartbeat, so I'll need you to be quiet." Bruce took the bottom part of the contraption and slipped it underneath Loki's shirt, pressing it against the trickster's bare chest.

Loki held his breath, pressing his thumb into the center of the palm of his opposite hand. Why did Bruce have to go under his shirt? Why couldn't he feel for a pulse? How could that little Y enable the doctor to _hear _his heart beating in his chest? Why couldn't he talk? What would happen if he did?

To his relief, it was over in a matter of minutes, and seeing as there were no snarky comments from Man of Iron, he must have done a sufficient job of concealing his discomfort. So, keeping with his forced air of dignity and collected composure, he adjusted his shirt and squared his shoulders for what must have been the twentieth time that day.

Then Bruce moved towards him again.

"Doctor, I know I'm heartless," he refused to move away, despite the panicked tempo in his chest, "but I'm certain you were able to hear it the first time."

Laughing softly, the beast shook his head, still advancing with the dial in hand. "No, I heard it. I'm going to listen to your lungs now."

"I assure you," the fallen god hissed sharply, willing the man to leave him alone, "I am breathing just fine." His hand was starting to bruise beneath his thumb.

"Loki, it's a standard procedure." Bruce paused, watching the prince's face for a moment before extending the entire contraption with a smile. "Why don't you try it?"

Green eyes darted from the object to the doctor's face and then back down to the object once more. It seemed simple enough—one piece in each ear, the bottom piece against a bare chest—and it didn't seem like it could hurt him in any way. Not unless someone strangled him with it.

"…very well." He reached out and grabbed it, inspecting both of the earpieces and giving Bruce another cold glare before slowly inserting the ends into their proper places. Then he grabbed the disk and carefully slipped it beneath his own shirt, wincing at the sound of contact and sudden movement. He placed the end on his chest, pressed down on it, and listened.

_...b-bum…b-bum…b-bum…b-bum…b-bum…_

Loki held his breath once more, straining to hear the sound more clearly. It was deep and steady, thrumming through the tube and into his ear with a rhythm that was soothing and familiar to him. It was like magic, in a very literal sense.

Having spent so many years training his body and senses to detect, absorb, and manipulate magic, identifying the pulse as such came without thought or effort. Magic, in and of itself, was life. It was a living, oftentimes breathing entity, and Loki had never failed to acknowledge that. When he cast spells or used charms and runes, he was utilizing a living thing in the same way an alchemist or healer would utilize plants and body tissue.

But he had never considered his heartbeat to be a magical thing.

Before Odin had taken his powers, there had been a subtle thrum coming from inside of him at any given time. It wasn't loud, and he didn't feel it unless he stopped and thought about it, much like one doesn't think about the fact that they have a tongue in their mouth unless it's pointed out. But it was always there, in the background, living inside of him, and when Odin took his powers…

…something _died. _

"Loki?"

He startled, meeting the bewildered and slightly concerned expressions with wide, blinking eyes. Moving quickly, he pulled the device away from his body and returned it to the doctor, clearing his throat in an attempt to regain whatever impression he may have just lost on the three. "Thank you. That was very interesting."

Loki folded his hands in his lap and allowed Bruce to continue with the medical processes, quietly focusing his mind on the beating within his chest and trying to stop a smile from splitting his lips.

_It seems there are some things that even you cannot take from me, Odin._

He could still turn things around. He could still get the upper hand, if only because he was _alive, _and living meant opportunities.

And it tasted like victory.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve glanced over at the clock before sitting down to eat his lunch, calculating the amount of time he had left until he had to take Loki his afternoon meal. He wasn't even sure what to make for the prisoner yet, and seeing as Loki hadn't told Bruce any of his likes or dislikes, Steve imagined the same would apply if he asked questions about food.

_I would ask Thor, but when Bruce explained the identity situation, he said it would be best to pretend we know nothing about Loki other than what we've learned firsthand. _Steve brought the sub to his mouth and took a large bite, tapping his foot against the floor as his thoughts continued. _I'll have to watch his facial expressions and reactions—if he even has any—to figure out whether or not he likes what I bring him. It'll be suspicious if I just stand there and watch him eat, though…_

He looked down at his sandwich, standing up after a moment and wrapping his sub in the tin foil that had stored it up until this point. Then he moved over to the refrigerator and pulled out the necessary ingredients to make a second one, still keeping an eye on the clock as he created a sub to match the one on the counter. Then, he wrapped that one in foil and grabbed a couple of sodas, a bag of potato chips, and a stack of napkins.

"Captain Rogers, might I ask where you are taking all of that food?"

Steve gestured with a nod at the meals bundled in his arms. "Heading down to have lunch with your brother." He paused for a moment, and then offered an encouraging smile. "You're doing really well, by the way."

Thor's brow creased in confusion, and he tilted his head to the side slightly, caught off-guard by the sudden statement. "I beg your pardon?"

"You haven't visited Loki since he got here. I know how hard it is for you to stay away like this, and I know if Bruce hadn't suggested it, you would be down there at least two times a day."

Thor let out a small, half-hearted chuckle. "Yes, that is true." His gaze dropped slightly. "I know he does not wish to see me, but I want nothing more than to observe his health and behavior with my own eyes."

"You did the right thing, Thor." Steve saw the way the situation was weighing on the other's mind, and as team leader, he felt that it was his personal responsibility to keep Thor from second guessing a good decision. "You didn't have many options, but you picked the best one that you could. On Midgard, we call that choosing the lesser of two evils." He paused, realizing that Thor might take that the wrong way and deciding to elaborate further. "It's a term you use to describe a situation where both options are hard, painful, and not what you would like them to be, but one of them is _less _hard and painful than the other."

Thor nodded slowly, gazing down at his feet as silence rose between them. After a moment, he jumped, stepping out of the way and gesturing towards the hall. "I apologize, I've kept you standing here with your arms full."

Steve shrugged lightly and started walking. "It's not a problem."

"Thank you… for both your words and your care for my brother."

"You're welcome." With those parting words, he left the kitchen behind and made his way down the hall toward the elevators, walking a little more hastily than before. Even though Loki had no way of knowing when he was supposed to be fed, Steve did, and it bothered him that he was running a risk of being late. He didn't like the idea of just taking someone food whenever it occurred to him to do so—not when he was the one responsible for making sure the person got food at all—and the thought of not being on time was equally disturbing to him.

He rode the elevator down to the floor on which Loki was being kept, and then he walked up to appropriate door and allowed the laser to scan his retina, using his foot to knock on the base of the door. He received no response, which wasn't all that surprising, so he called out to the man on the other side.

"Loki, my hands are full. Open the door, or you won't get lunch."

There was the sound of rustling bed sheets, then soft footsteps, and then a familiar voice. "I do not know what a lunch is, so I'm not entirely sure whether or not I do."

"It's an afternoon meal meant to tide you over until dinner, or a similar evening meal." Steve shifted his weight, trying not to jostle the sodas more than he already had.

Inside the room, Loki hummed, suspicion invading his voice further. "If your hands are full, how did you operate the elevator?"

Steve couldn't help but roll his eyes. "I said my hands were full, not my fingers. I only need to stick one out in order to press a button."

There was a pause, and then the door swung inward. Steve pushed through quickly and swung it shut with his foot, despite the fact that Loki would have to get through three hundred and twenty-five different blocks, traps, and barriers just to get to the front door. He figured it was better safe than sorry.

"What is this?" Loki questioned, surveying the food in Steve's arms with a quizzical brow.

Steve carefully began unloading his arms, placing the items on the dresser one by one. "I brought some subs, chips, and sodas." He paused, meeting the other's eyes before clarifying further. "Lunch."

"Hmm." Loki crossed his arms over his chest, inspecting the food with wary eyes. "Why so much, Captain?"

"Well, I don't know about you," Steve started, unwrapping his own sub and grabbing a soda can before sitting down on a nearby chair to eat, "but I eat quite a bit, and there's two of us, so I figured it was best to over-estimate."

Loki watched him carefully, approaching his own half of the meal and carrying it to his bed. He sat down and unwrapped the long sandwich, looking up when he saw no utensils to watch what Steve did with his.

Steve noticed—though he pretended he didn't—and picked it up with both hands, taking a large bite and setting it back down. He looked over at Loki, who was cautiously lifting the sub from his lap, and did his best to hold back a smile as the god tried to figure out where to bite first. After some deliberation, however, Loki opened his mouth and attempted to get the end of the sub inside.

Swallowing, Steve tapped the top of his soda can. "This is a drink, by the way. Coke." He reached out and grabbed the metal tab, popping it open and letting some of the carbon leak out before taking a swig and returning to his meal.

Loki glanced at the can he had placed on the floor, but he made no move to obtain or open it, choosing instead to take another bite of his sub… and another… and another… and another. Steve knew that Loki hadn't eaten since his arrival on Earth—in fact, most of the Avengers had skipped or delayed meals in order to prepare the entirety of Manhattan for Loki's presence—but until now, he hadn't thought about how hungry Loki would be.

_Thor said that Asgardians are not as reliant on food as Loki, but I completely forgot that he's human now. Not to mention the fact that Dr. Banner said Loki was on Earth, unconscious, for two—no, three days. _

"I, uh—" Steve cleared his throat, intending to apologize for the oversight but stopping short when he saw the filling for Loki's sub tumble out of the bread and land on the foil below.

Loki's eyes got wide, and he observed the mess with an expression of confusion, which quickly turned into embarrassment. "You what?" he pressed, picking up the innards and relining his bread with it.

"I wanted to apologize for taking this long to get you a meal. We were all caught off guard by Thor's visit and request, and—" he shook his head, taking a sip of his drink before continuing, "—I am the leader of this team, and as such, it's my responsibility to make sure you're taken care of. I didn't handle that very well up until this point, and I'm sorry."

Pale lips curled into a sneer, the half-constructed sandwich abandoned on the trickster's lap. "If you're a leader, you shouldn't be so weak in front of the enemy. It reflects poorly on your image."

Blue eyes turned sharp, the old, ingrained sense of justice rising in his chest. "If it were easy to admit when you're wrong and apologize, a lot more people would do it." He took another bite, forcing the business-like edge from his tone and continuing. "Most of the planet wouldn't dream of apologizing to someone like you, who would take any and every chance to rub it in their faces. That's not because they're strong, that's because they're prideful, embarrassed, and afraid—in other words, weak." He took another bite, and grabbed his Coke, swirling the contents as he waited for Loki's response.

But there was none.

Loki resumed eating his lunch and said nothing more, although he did lose the contents of his sub a few more times before it was finished. Steve kept quiet himself, finishing his sub and throwing away the foil, which lead Loki to do the same with his leftover garbage.

"Captain." Loki spoke crisply, reaching down to retrieve his drink and scanning it with inquisitive green eyes. "I am very curious to know why you are here."

Steve arched an eyebrow, taking a moment to pause before offering up an explanation. "Well, Loki, when a man and a woman love each other very much…" He wished he had brought a camera so he could capture the look of utter disdain on the criminal's face.

"You know what I meant."

"Do I?" Finishing off the last of his beverage, Steve got to his feet and walked over to the dresser, helping himself to the bag of potato chips and walking back to his seat. "You could be asking me why I'm the one in charge of your health. You could be asking me why I'm not out with my team performing some act of heroics. You could be asking—"

"Why are you here with me?"

Steve stopped, looking at the fallen god for a long time before finally offering up a response. "There are a couple reasons, actually. Mainly, I didn't know what you liked to eat, and I thought it would be a good idea to watch your reactions and see if I could figure out what to make you for dinner."

Loki searched him with keen eyes, his expression blank. Steve didn't waver or back down, unwilling to admit anything else but equally unwilling to let the other believe the words he said were false.

"Hmm." Finally, the god's eyes fell back to his hands, fingers rubbing over the top of the can slowly. "I am trying to decide whether or not to believe you, my dear Captain."

"What reason would I have to lie to you, Loki?"

Since World War II and all that had happened therein, Steve Rogers had not considered himself to be scared easily. He had seen too many horrors, faced to many monsters, and recovered from too many wounds to be frightened by most things that would send an average man's heart rate through the roof.

But he felt a chill run down his spine when those dark, hateful, emerald green eyes met his.

* * *

Loki held the soldier's eyes for a lifetime. He saw every fear the man had ever experienced flash through those pools of crystalline water. Every time he had lacked a response, every time he had ever felt confused, every time he didn't know what to expect from his adversary. It was all there, open to Loki's own gaze like a book or a painting.

"What reason would you have to lie to me?" A sharp, cold laugh escaped the man's throat. "What reason would you have to tell me the truth? I am not an imbecile, Captain, nor am I mad, despite what you and your team might think. I know that I am here because of Thor, and I know that none of you wish to deal with me and would much prefer I be sent back to Asgard as soon as possible. Given that, you have every reason to lie to me."

Loki's voice grew in volume, the muscles in his body going taught as a line of defense against whatever retaliation Steve might offer, rage boiling in the pit of his stomach. "You speak with good intentions and kindness because you think it will make this situation pass in the quickest and easiest way it can. It will keep you in Thor's good graces, which will in turn give you the most powerful allies in the nine realms, but it will also keep me from causing you any further problems for you. It makes you feel as though you truly are heroes, making a sacrifice to achieve a greater good, to do what you have been lead to believe is morally right. You don't want me here anymore than you did the first time I came, you're just pretending that you do because this time around, it's _convenient _for you to do so. It's beneficial."

His vision blurred, the sound of his own words setting the hateful, angry thoughts in stone and leaving no room for doubt in his mindscape. Loki knew all of this before, of course, but laying it out in order, bit by bit, piece by piece—it made so much sense, it was almost sickening the way they blatantly lied in the face of it. It was _pathetic._

"So, Captain, I'll give you a hand an answer my own question for you. I asked you why you were here, and the answer is simple. Because you are trying to earn my trust. It makes no sense for you to come down here for any other reason, because any other reason would offer no benefit to you or your team. But if you earn my trust, oh ho ho," the laughter dissolved into a vision snarl, saliva spraying from his mouth, "then everything would be _perfect_ and you could please Asgard _and _have a brainwashed asset _all at the same time!" _Just like Odin.

Silence reigned between them, Loki's words hanging in the air alone, underline only by the soft but labored breathing of the furious ex-god.

"People are like that, aren't we?"

Loki blinked, body rigid, heart pounding in his chest.

"We're greedy and selfish, and we only want to do things that benefit us. We want to feel good about ourselves, and we try to ignore or deny things that make us feel guilty." Steve's voice was soft, but there was no timidity to it. "People do lie because of those reasons, and I'm sure people have lied to you in the past because of those reasons. Maybe there are people on my team who will lie to you or have already because of those reasons. I don't know."

Swallowing, Loki felt an increasing urge to back away or hide behind something. He made his accusations with the intent of instigating a fight, but this quiet, calm demeanor was almost worse. He didn't know what was coming, but he was defenseless to stop its arrival.

Steve sighed, getting to his feet and crouching down by the bed to grab Loki's unopened drink. "I can't tell you what to believe, and if you want to go on thinking I'm lying to you so I can use you, well… I won't try to stop you." He cracked a small smile, opening the can and holding it out to the man on the bed. "You know, freedom of speech and all that. I have to stand behind the stars and stripes." Smile fading, he regained the serious tone he had dropped and continued. "But I will tell you that I am not lying, and I will tell you that Thor is not the only reason you are here."

Loki glared. "You _are _lying." It was a weak counterargument, and he knew that, but he was at an unbelievable loss for words. If this had been an argument with Thor or Odin or Director Fury—if it had been an argument with almost any one of his enemies in the nine realms and beyond—he would have been prepared to answer. He would have gone through the motions a thousand times before and learned the best way to weave his web of lies, silver tongue never failing to give him the last word.

But Steve was different.

The Man out of Time had responded to the jeers and accusations with complete control. He had spoken softly but strongly, calmly but passionately, and kindly but unsympathetically. Rather than casting Loki's entire argument aside or breaking under the full weight of the words, he picked the truth out and admitted to it while simultaneously drawing out the lies and casting them aside.

"You are lying." Loki repeated the phrase for his own ears more than anything else, his gaze wandering down to the can that he hadn't realized was in his hands before now.

Steve responded with a nod, placing his hands on his hips in a way that reminded the trickster of the black and white images depicted in his World War II book. Heroic. Pure. _Disgusting._

"I respect your decision." He picked up his empty can and dusted off any crumbs that might have been left on his chair, taking the bag of potato chips and placing it on the dresser with the napkins. "I'll leave those here. They're a pretty good snack, so if you get hungry before I come down with dinner, feel free to finish off the bag."

Loki said nothing, following the soldier with his eyes, waiting for the moment where the smile would break through. For the moment when Steve wouldn't be able to contain his pity or vindication or rage any longer. He would be ready when the super soldier finally snapped; he was already working on a list of retorts to have on hand when the moment finally came.

But it never did.

Steve let himself out and pulled the door shut behind him, stopping only to call over his shoulder. "By the way, soda is a kind of carbonated beverage. It'll be kind of… tingly, I guess? I don't know, just take a sip. You'll know what I mean."

Then he was gone.

Minutes ticked by without any movement from the god on the bed. Emerald pools stared endlessly at the bubbling brown beverage in his hand. It was quiet. A chill danced along his spine, his fury, and the adrenaline that came with it, no longer there to keep him warm.

He turned his head towards the recently closed door.

_I respect your decision._

But Steve insisted he wasn't lying. Steve knew that Loki was putting up walls. Steve knew that Loki was going to make this situation as difficult as he possibly could on everyone involved. Steve _knew _all of this, so why…?

_He must have misunderstood._

Yes, that had to be it.

It had to be.

_Idiot._

Loki slowly lifted the can to his lips, tilting it back and then jerking his whole body forward to spit it back into the can when an unfamiliar sensation breached his mouth. _Poison? For what purpose?_

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Loki inspected the drink's container further, brow creasing slightly. Steve had said something about the drink being carbonated, but the sensation he just felt was more like a burn than a tingle.

_I'm not lying to you._

If Steve intended to make Loki believe this, poisoning the soda would serve to counteract everything he was trying to make his prisoner believe. On top of that, Loki had watched him open the can, so the chances of Steve having added something to it was significantly lower. Thirdly, Steve had warned him that it would taste strange, although that could also be a mark against the soldier depending on how one looked at it, and he had consumed the exact same drink in front of Loki beforehand.

"It wasn't entirely unpleasant, I suppose." He lifted it and sniffed around the opening, feeling a mild burn in his nose and hesitating once more before claiming the can with his mouth and taking a large gulp.

_If it is poison, Thor will certainly lay waste to all of S.H.I.E.L.D._

Loki took another drink.


	7. Chapter 7

"I think you're talking about a sub." Bruce smiled, unable to keep a straight face as Loki tried to explain his recent diet, dark brown eyes following the somewhat stiff, disjointed hand gestures with a twinkle of amusement in them. "Did you like it, then?"

Loki looked down his nose at the other, arms folded over his chest. "It was… edible enough." He paused, glancing to the far side of the room before leveling his gaze with the doctor once more. "I liked it, yes."

"I'm glad." Bruce gave a warm smile, picking up the cup of tea he had brewed for himself and bringing it to his lips. "There are a lot of different varieties of food on Midgard, mostly because of the many different cultures and what ingredients are available to each one."

The Asgardian arched an eyebrow, reaching for his own cup with cautious fingers and inspecting the drink for a long time before taking a sip. "What do you mean by that?" he asked, tongue darting over his lips as he went for another drink.

"Well, I'm not sure how things are on Asgard, but…" Bruce trailed for a moment, squinting upwards as he struggled to create a concise explanation of the varying cultures on Midgard. "It's… depending on where you live, things like food, clothing, holidays, habits, relationships, and so on and so forth are all different. For example, if you grew up in Japan, not only would you speak a different language and have a different appearance, your name would probably not be Loki, and you would eat with chopsticks instead of utensils. You wouldn't celebrate Christmas the way we do here, and your major religions and belief systems would be different. Your diet would consist of a lot of fish, and rice would be included with almost every meal. You would drink tea, but not the instant kind I made for us today, and you would never drink it cold like we do here." He spread his hands, making a gesture that implied the examples going on and on. "There's much, much more than that, of course. Each culture is very complex and has different variations depending simply on regions and different socioeconomic classes, but that should give you at least a general idea of how they work."

Loki listened to the explanation with rapt attention, looking away only to ensure that he set his cup down in the proper place and didn't spill it. "Fascinating." His voice lacked all of the enthusiasm that shone in his eyes, and the set in his jaw was quite obviously an attempt at furthering an impression of disinterest.

_You're stubborn, Loki. _Bruce brought the tea to his lips and sipped slowly, taking the consequential silence as an excuse to think. _You're very, very stubborn._

It wasn't the first time Bruce noticed it, but with every new occurrence, he saw a specific trait becoming more and more apparent: Loki's rebellion was very immature in nature. Bruce saw childishness in both Thor and Loki, which was fascinating in itself because of their many differences, but it wasn't until he met Loki face to face that he was able to pinpoint it. Both Asgardians had an exceeding level of maturity that was broken up by intervals and fits of absolute juvenility. For Loki, it was stubbornness, and for Thor, it was his temper.

Placing his cup back on the table, the doctor leaned back in his chair and rested his chin on his hand. "You know, it really is fascinating. Especially the culinary aspects of culture. What Steve brought you yesterday was an Italian sub, meaning that it would fall under that specific food category. Most pastas, like spaghetti and alfredo, along with pizzas, various breads, cheeses, canoli, and other similar things are all considered to be 'Italian food' regardless of where you eat them."

"Interesting."

Ah, yes, the second aspect of Loki's stubbornness. Its source was a desperate need for control, which was something Thor's temper was also bred from, although Bruce was willing to bet Loki needed it more. _Tony said that Loki has been carefully constructing his outfits, and Jarvis has reported him closely inspecting the content of his room at least three times since his arrival. Most likely, he needs to have full control of a situation in order to feel comfortable, which is probably why he waffled and was defeated when both of his domination plans had unexpected changes thrown into them. Control is key._

So why wasn't Loki trying to manipulate the conversation?

"Do they have different food groups on Asgard?" Bruce polished off his drink and reclined in his chair, subtly reminding Loki that this was not an interrogation. "Or is everything just considered to be food, period?"

Loki glared at him for a long time, almost as if he thought he could eradicate the questions with that single look. Of course he couldn't, and after about two minutes, he finally let out a sigh and relinquished an answer. "Three groups. Meat, alcohol, and everything else."

Bruce chuckled softly, adjusting his glasses with his middle finger. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the first two groups are Asgardian favorites?"

For a moment, it looked as if all Loki had to contribute to the conversation was a stiff, tight-lipped nod, but then those lips started to move. "Yes. Most feasts don't have anything but meat and drink after the first course." He paused. "Sometimes they will serve fresh bread throughout, but that's simply because it goes well with the remaining food."

"Sounds like Asgard knows how to throw a party. Granted, the next morning is probably a nightmare, but…" He let his voice trail off, trying to coax further reply from the god.

It worked, and Loki let out a bitter snort. "It certainly was. Thor was the worst, seeing as we roomed across the hall from each other, and I had to deal with his constant whimpering and moaning all day."

Bruce cracked a broad smile. "So, even the gods get drunk and hungover."

"Terribly so." Loki finished his own beverage and placed the empty cup on the table. "To make matters worse, the servants can't clean up the dining hall until long after the sun has set, which means everything the next day is behind schedule."

Still smiling, Bruce arched an eyebrow, fingers coming up to rub at his chin absentmindedly. "I take it you're not one for drinking."

"I am not."

It didn't surprise him that Loki didn't partake in alcohol. In fact, it fit in perfectly with the proposed need for control. When inebriated, most people couldn't maintain the kind of calm, level-headed, calculative precision Loki seemed to rely on so much. Getting drunk would cripple him, so it made sense that he avoided alcohol in general.

"Celebrations must have been pretty annoying for you, then," he ventured, making his first attempt at pulling on the other's personal life.

Shoulders were squared, and Loki replied in a terse, clipped tone. "Indeed." He looked right into Bruce's eyes, but there was a sort of haze to them that made Bruce think Loki was trying hard to wall off the topic.

_Well, that didn't work. _But the god was still talking, and that was a good thing, so Bruce kept pushing a little, tiny bit at a time. "Did you like the food, though?"

"Food is meant for consumption, not enjoyment."

Bruce laughed. "Don't let a chef hear you say that."

For a moment, there was nothing, and then Loki's lips started to purse. "A chef?"

"Someone who cooks for a living. Food is like an art to them—well, most of them." He let out another little chuckle, shaking his head. "They wouldn't want to hear someone saying that food isn't for enjoyment. They even judge their dishes based on looks."

Loki kept his expression a controlled mask of vague interest, one leg coming up to cross over the other, his ankle resting on his thigh. "On Asgard, the cooks could care less what the food looks like. I suppose they figure it will all be eaten, anyway."

"How do they serve it?"

"They put several food items onto a large tray and send them out. If you want something on the tray, you simply grab it and eat it." Loki's shoulders started to relax as he spoke, tension wheedling its way from the stiff muscles.

Bruce snapped his fingers at the familiar description, his finger extending to point at the other. "That sounds like a buffet. We have those here on Midgard, but it's not really a standard form of eating. Do you—"

He was stopped by the sudden jingle coming from the phone in his pocket. Upon withdrawal, he saw that their hour-long session was up, meaning that Steve was waiting outside to take Loki back to his room.

"Is it time for me to leave?" Loki questioned, already standing up and smoothing out his cream-colored sweater.

Bruce looked up from the phone, shrugging his shoulders. "It's up to you. These sessions are set to a minimum of one hour, but if you ever want to stick around to talk or have another cup of tea, you're more than welcome."

There was a single beat of silence.

"I'll be going now." He turned away and marched towards the door.

Bruce picked up both cups and walked to the small kitchenette at the back of the room. "Loki," he called, "I think I'll make some tea again tomorrow. If I do, would you like a cup for yourself?"

Loki put his hand on the doorknob, looking over his shoulder and giving a quick nod before slipping out into the hallway. Bruce sighed, leaning back against the counter and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

_It's only day two, and I can already tell this is going to be a very long, difficult process. He's guarded, and it's not all coming from one source. There's the control factor, of course, but there's also the vulnerability of his new body and situation to blame. There's definitely influence from Asgardian culture and a life of royalty playing a part, too, but I can't pinpoint the relationship just yet._

Adjusting his glasses, he returned to the chairs and sat down on Loki's side, looking around the room and trying to put himself in the captive's shoes. It wasn't a very threatening environment, what with the cream colored walls and pale blue carpeting and accents, and it wasn't small or similar to a cell in any way.

_Still… the Other Guy did try to turn him into a pancake last time we met… I can understand where the tense atmosphere is coming from. Of course, it's not like I can really do anything. No one else has the know-how or the patience to do these sessions, and even if they did, it wouldn't do any good to change things now._

He sighed again.

_I need a nap._

* * *

_Like the final act in a play, it was this sacrificial move that drew the curtains on World War II. In its wake, it left destruction, broken homes, devastated economies, unrest around the world, and horrors that would go down in the history books for centuries. More than that, it left America with a gaping hole in its defenses—a hole that was once guarded by a star-spangled shield and the fiery passion of our country's core beliefs._

_God bless Captain America, a true hero with a heart of pure gold._

Loki let out a sigh and rolled his eyes, snapping the book shut and setting it on his nightstand. He hadn't been wrong about the text offering useful information, but it was filled with an overwhelming patriotism and the kind of idealistic narrative that left him with a sour taste in his mouth.

_Cliché, to say the least. Having met the Captain, I can't say the author was wrong in their description of his image, but that isn't who he is as a person or a soldier on the battlefield. Not to mention, it's a rather pathetic way to end a novel about the supposed monstrosities of war. _

Shaking his head, he got to his feet and began to tidy up his room, as he often found himself doing over the last two days. First, he adjusted the pillows and blankets, brushing off any potential dust and smoothing out the creases. Then he went over to the bookshelf and grabbed another novel, placing it on the nightstand atop the one he had just finished. Running a finger over the top of his dresser, he checked it for dust and then made sure his hamper was in the exact position it needed to be in. He still didn't quite understand it, but Jarvis had informed him that it was supposed to store his dirty clothes and be left as it was, so he figured it was best to wait and see before changing anything about it.

_Well, that killed five minutes of my time._

Green eyes flickered to the door, locking onto the knob as it started to move and watching as it swung inward. Steve Rogers was standing outside of the room with a flat box balanced on his head and a large bottle of dark liquid in his free hand.

Loki blinked at him, disdain evident on his face. "Please tell me you did not carry that on your head the entire time."

"Nope, just when I got to the door." He grinned and removed the box from his head, setting it down on the bed and placing the bottle on the dresser with two cups and some napkins. "You seemed to like the soda, so I brought some more today."

Loki regarded him with a nod, carefully moving towards the bed and inspecting the box without ever fully showing the enemy his back. It smelled good, but it also smelled unfamiliar. There was certainly some sort of meat on it, but other than that, he had no idea what the soldier was expecting him to swallow.

"You can open it." Steve twisted the cap from the bottle and poured the fizzy liquid into the cups, placing them on the nightstand and pulling up his usual chair so he could join Loki for the fourth meal since his arrival. "I see you picked out some books to read," he commented, gesturing to the stack a few inches from his hand.

Moving slowly, Loki seated himself on the bed and drew his legs up from the floor, exploring the box while giving Steve a half-annoyed, half-suspicious look. "Yes. I've already finished the bottom one, actually."

"Really?" He reached out, lifting the top one just enough to read the cover of the one bellow, an expression of mild surprise taking over his features as he read. "Oh, no."

Loki smirked, intrigued by the man's sudden discomfort. "What's the matter?"

Steve pointed to the title. _The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan. _"This was a part of the theme song they used to have when I did stage shows—before I actually, you know, fought in the war for real. It's just—" he laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, "—it's just plain silly, looking back on it. It was silly at the time, too, but… something about a jingle that dumb surviving this long makes it funnier."

Green eyes flickered between the Captain and the box, the lid finally coming off to reveal a round piece of steaming bread with multiple toppings scattered across the top. Loki had no idea what it was or how to eat it, so he waited to see what Steve would do, continuing the conversation to cover up his ignorance.

"Ah, yes, I recall reading about your stage career. Each bond you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy's gun, yes?" Lips curled into a devilish grin, eyes sparkling mischievously. "I thought it was a rather comical beginning for America's greatest hero, but it was also… fitting, I suppose."

"Fitting?" Steve arched a brow, grabbing a predetermined slice of the flat bread and taking a bite. "How so?"

Loki imitated the movement, waving his other hand dismissively. "Oh, you know. You started off as a scrawny child, and then your body got enhanced, but inside you were still the same frail, weak, pliable creature that you were beforehand. So, then you had to go through another change—that is, you had to become battle-hardened and cold—so you could win the war."

Steve's expression shifted, turning slightly downcast, and Loki felt a surge of achievement. He had been correct in the assumption that reading up on his captors would give him ammunition to use against them, but the information was proving useful long before he thought it would. It was delicious.

"You're wrong."

Loki chuckled. "Am I now?"

"You are." Steve took two more bites of pizza, forcing a casual air as he chewed, swallowing thickly before meeting the god's accusatory stare. "I didn't change on the inside. I didn't become battle-hardened or cold. Sure, I might have grown more accustomed to seeing bloodshed, but that doesn't mean I hated it any less. I still had compassion—still do."

Loki's brow arched sharply, his expression both disbelieving and disapproving. "Really now?"

"I didn't get into the war by following every last order or hunting for revenge." The Captain's voice was more solid, more sure. "I got into the war because I refused to abandon my best friend, because I wanted to defend the weak and helpless, because I wanted to do what was _right. _I don't think most would consider that to be a battle-hardened perspective of war."

Loki caught an opening, and the silver tongue began to work its magic. "And a lot of good that did you." He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head back and forth, food forgotten on the bed next to him. "You weren't able to save your best friend, and even though you managed to deal a deadly blow to the war, you did so at the cost of your own life. If you _were _colder and more ruthless, you could have accomplished both and lived out your life in the appropriate time period."

Steve licked his lips, lowering the pizza away from his mouth and dropping his gaze to the floor. "I know that I failed Bucky." He swallowed hard, raising his eyes to meet Loki's once more, defiance shining in the glassy sapphire pools. "I failed a lot of people. I've made mistakes, and I've come up short. Maybe I wasn't the man for the job. Maybe if someone else had my body and shield, the war would have been over twice as fast. Maybe Bucky would still be alive. But I can't change that. It is what it is, and I choose to make the best of things and help people in the here and now."

Snarling, the god spat back a counter, fingers curling through the sheets, heart rate steadily increasing. "You can't make up for past failures. No matter how many people you save, no matter how many good deeds you do, it doesn't change anything—"

"It changes the future."

Breath caught on the walls of Loki's throat, rage and terror mingling together as he struggled—if only for a second—to find a retort on his lips. "What good does that do you?"

"That depends on the choices you make. It can do you good or harm. Sometimes, it doesn't do anything for you, but it changes the world for someone else." Steve smiled, finishing off his first slice of circle bread and reaching for another.

Loki's stomach lurched, vision blurring as anger churned in his gut, demanding satisfaction. "You're weak," he hissed, knuckles fading to white as his grip on the bed sheets tightened. "Like the rest of humanity, you're ruled by your sentiment and your foolish ideals. It sounds good when you put it in a speech or write it down on paper, but it's just an illusion. You can't change anything—past, present, or future—and your attempts to do so are nothing more than a pitiful attempt at easing your own guilty consciences!"

"I'm alright with that." Steve took another huge bite, chewing contentedly. "There are worse things to be. Bitter, hateful, lonely, jealous… I'd rather be weak and sentimental than any of those."

Silence.

Steve picked up the cup on the nightstand, swirling the contents a bit before downing it all in one, long gulp. Loki watched him, burning and sick to his stomach from the sheer amount of rage washing over him, hands trembling in the cream-colored blankets. Neither of them said a word, one of them pretending nothing had happened and the other frozen in a silent battle between self-preservation and hate.

"It's pizza."

Loki blinked.

"Do you like it?"

_Do I like it? Do I like it? What, the pizza, or being cornered and out-witted by a good-for-nothing mortal? Are you incapable of anger, dear Captain, is that what makes you so invincible when facing my words? Everyone has a breaking point. Everyone. So help me, Steve Rogers, if it takes me a thousand years, I will find it, and I will exploit it. Make no mistake about that._

Ranting within his own mind slowly took the edge off of the burn, and after a minute or so of silence, he offered a reply. "It is edible."

Steve laughed but didn't press the topic, and Loki had to take that as a victory. If he saw it as anything but a successful attempt at muting the hero's words, he wouldn't be able to fight off the urge to wrap his hands around the other's throat. That much he knew.

_Bitter, hateful, lonely, jealous…_

It hadn't been a defensive move on Steve's part. He accepted his flaws, smoothly working Loki's own shortcomings into the conversation as a subtle way of returning fire and shifting into an offensive tactic. So not only had Loki failed to provoke the soldier, but he had also left the door wide open for passive-aggressive remarks that left him with little option for reply. If he accepted, denied, or acknowledged them at all, he was essentially admitting to their truth. All he could do was ignore them.

He hated it.

_Bitter, hateful, lonely, jealous…_

"Loki?"

He growled at the man—quite literally a growl, feral and deranged and furious—dark eyes narrowing into slits. "What?"

Steve gestured to the piece of pizza lying on the lid of the box. "You should eat up. I'm going to be a little late with dinner tonight because of a mission, and I don't want you going hungry."

Loki glanced down at the food, having no trace of an appetite whatsoever but also knowing he was too high-strung to argue at the moment. He had to remember that he was a captive here, despite all the pleasantries and euphemisms, and it was wisest to act accordingly. Steve seemed to be level-headed enough, but if he were to get into a similar situation with Tony or Natasha, or if word got back to Clint that Loki was causing problems for the other members of the team, well... things could end very badly for the fallen god.

He drew the pizza to his lips, taking a small bite and chewing absentmindedly, gluing his eyes to the far wall and refusing to look even in the general direction of the super soldier. He saw a third piece disappear from his peripherals but paid it no mind, focusing only on his meal and his need to stay calm.

"Tomorrow afternoon, we're going out to help repair some of the damage in Manhattan. You may or may not remember this part of the deal between us and Asgard, but you're going to be helping with that."

Loki cursed under his breath. How could he forget his obligatory service to the people of New York? Somewhere along the line, he was sure he had been told the specific date and time, but he had little understanding of Midgardian time, and when he tried to get Jarvis to explain it, he only wound up more confused.

_It's tomorrow then…_

"I was thinking of making spaghetti and meatballs tonight. What do you think?"

Loki sighed heavily, air pushing between tightly clenched teeth, lips forming the only words he could think of that would not end in bloodshed. "Captain… are you, by any chance, Italian?"

* * *

A/N: I know it's not common for post-Avengers story to show New York as heavily damaged, but remember it's only been two years since Loki's invasion. It took us over a decade to rebuild the World Trade Center, and five years after Hurricane Katrina there were still people without stable homes and areas that were void of important structures such as hospitals. Realistically, there's no way Manhattan has been entirely rebuilt and recovered if Loki's attack was only two to two and a half years ago.

Thanks for your reviews, everyone! It really helps me get a better idea of how to shape and emphasize my chapters. I really appreciate it!


	8. Chapter 8

They told him to dress for warm weather.

Being raised in a realm with a perpetually moderate temperature, Loki wasn't used to changing his attire because of degrees, but the sphere he was trapped upon had a plague called 'seasons' that changed the globe from hot to cold rather dramatically. It was, evidently, summertime here in Manhattan, New York, in the month known as July.

_Tch. They say these things as though they expect me to know what they mean. If they would just figure out how to manipulate the weather, they wouldn't have to deal with all of these changes and clothing types and ridiculous contraptions._

Finding a soft green shirt with short sleeves, he turned it over in his hands and examined its features before pulling it down over his head and examining himself in the mirror. It wasn't as dignified as some of the nicer sweaters he had found in his drawers, but at least it wasn't as painfully bland as the majority of the short-sleeved shirts available to him.

"It will do." Turning back to the chest of drawers, he closed the one his shirt had come from and opened another in search of a pair of lightweight pants. He didn't particularly mind the denim pants they offered—they certainly made him feel safer than suit slacks or sweatpants—but he couldn't imagine it would be a very good idea to wear them if he wanted to keep cool.

_Probably._

He hated not knowing what to do. They expected him to piece together the miniscule fragments of information they had given him and turn it into an outfit that was functional, comfortable, and would easily blend into a population of creatures he knew practically nothing about.

_Short sleeves… short pants? _His hands started to dig through the contents. _I think I saw a pair like that… and tan would look nice with this shade of green. _Moments after that thought crossed his mind, he withdrew a pair of tan pants that stopped just above his knees. It took several moments in front of the mirror to finally decide that it was acceptable enough to wear in public, and then he could only wait. They didn't give him shoes—a precaution to deter running away, no doubt—and his door was ever-locked.

_If I could still wield magic… _He clenched his hands into fists, watching with vacant eyes as his fingers slowly uncurled. _If I could still wield my magic, I could have New York returned to its former state in days. My work would be done, and they would certainly feel at least some sense of gratitude and lightened suspicion. _Sighing, his dropped his hands into his lap and stared at the wall in front of him. _It's irrelevant, I suppose. Right now, the most important thing is to escape, and I can't do that unless I can get the Avengers to drop their guard._

It sounded like a challenge.

_How enticing. I accept._

There was a knock at the door.

"Reindeer Games, you decent?"

"Well, _I _think so, but there are many who would beg to differ, Anthony." Loki got to his feet and walked over towards the door, folding his arms over his chest and waiting for the Man of Iron to enter his cell.

"Ha, ha, ha." Tony entered the room in an outfit that seemed to run along similar lines to Loki's, which made the god think he had made the right choices. "You're a riot."

While Loki wasn't quite sure what the phrase meant, the tone of the other's voice was enough that he could guess. "Hmm. Do you have shoes for me, Anthony, or am I to walk around New York in bare feet?"

"Of course not. You'll walk on your hands." There was just enough silence to make Loki wonder whether or not Tony was joking. "Look, if you stop staring at me like I'm going to eat you and leave your bedroom, then you can have shoes."

He scowled in response, stepping over the threshold and standing in the hallway with a careful, precise gaze locked onto Tony's every move. Of the three Avengers he had spoken to since his arrival, Tony was the one he had interacted with the least, and it made him uncomfortable.

_It's only going to get worse. Clint, Natasha, and Thor are all going to be working today. I'll have to interact with all six of Earth's Mightiest Heroes at once. _And he didn't like it one bit.

Tony shut and locked the door, starting down the hall and motioning for Loki to follow him. "Alright, let's go get you some sneakers."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's a kind of shoe."

"Why do you call them sneakers?"

"I don't know, actually."

"You should just call them shoes."

"I'd like to hit you with a shoe."

Loki rolled his eyes. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

Clint crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head back and to the side ever so slightly. Steve was going over the work instructions for Loki, with Tony throwing in his oh-so-useful comments from time to time, but Clint didn't pay much attention. He only had one question, and the second Steve was done talking, he pushed his way into the conversation and dropped it.

"Who's watching Loki?"

Steve looked over his shoulder. "I figured Bruce or I would—"

"I'll do it." Clint met their cautious expressions with a professional tone and stance. "You're iconic, Steve. It'll draw too much attention to Loki, and we'll run the risk of someone recognizing him. Same for Stark and Thor. If Banner watches him, we'll run a risk of Loki releasing the Hulk." He turned his gaze to the dethroned prince standing a few feet away. "That leaves Natasha and me, and I know Loki better than she does."

Steve looked at him for a moment and then offered a slow nod. "That sounds good. You know the necessary precautions?"

Clint nodded sharply.

"Then we're ready to hit the streets." Steve jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Make sure to distribute a lot of water. They're calling for a high of 103, and there's not a lot of respite from the sun." Turning to Clint, he added on a few comments. "Loki's public name is Levi. If anyone asks why he's with an Avenger, we tell them he's observing us for a biography."

With a hand signal from Steve, the group dispersed, the lobby slowly emptying until there were only two people left. Clint and Loki, standing across from each other, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, and shoulders squared—ready to work together as a team.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," the god quipped.

Clint ignored him and pointed in the direction of their destination. "We're going that way."

Loki started to walk but refused to get in front of Clint, not wanting to leave his back exposed for obvious reasons. "There's no reason to be so formal with me. You and I go way back, you know."

"You're here to hand out care packages, food, and water to homeless civilians." Clint walked on Loki's left side, his gaze ever-locked on the space in front of him. "If you want to have a battle of wits, do it later and with someone else. Right now, you need to focus on your task, because if you don't, I'll tell Director Fury that this arrangement isn't working, and we'll send you back to Asgard on a silver platter."

The god chuckled, scanning the streets absentmindedly with a smirk on his lips. "I'm not afraid of death, Barton, so that isn't exactly the most threatening thing to say to me."

Clint stared dead ahead, refusing to give Loki as much as a sideways glance. Responding verbally seemed like fighting back, given that Loki's most powerful weapon was his tongue, but actually taking the time to acknowledge him and letting his mind stray from the mission? That felt like surrender, and he was none too anxious to have that taste in his mouth again.

"Odin wasn't going to execute you." He stopped at the crosswalk and waited for traffic to clear, slipping his hands into his pockets and rolling his shoulders. "Thor said that because you're his baby brother, and he just can't stand to say anything that might break your misunderstood little heart." He started to walk again.

"He's not my brother," the god hissed.

Clint didn't say anything. He'd made his point, and Loki had obviously received it, otherwise he would have made another crack about his supposed sentence. So, they walked on in silence, not a word passing between them until they arrived at the block that had been designated as their area of work.

"What exactly is it that we're doing?"

Clint gave him a brief glare. "Did you listen to a single thing Steve said?"

"No, not really."

Captain America really must have been a legend if he was transporting and taking food to this royal pain every day. Clint wasn't sure he would make it to the end of the five hour work period without putting an arrow in the trickster's throat at least once.

"See all these people on the streets?" he sighed, setting aside his frustration for the moment.

Loki looked across the area and nodded, a disgusted expression twisting his features.

"They're homeless and have very few belongings." He gave a pregnant pause. "Because of you, just in case that wasn't clear enough." Pointing to a Red Cross canopy set up nearby, he continued. "These people are trained to give medical help, and they have tents set up in a couple different places around Manhattan where they still haven't rebuilt the hospitals." Then he pointed to a white truck parked on the opposite side of the road. "That truck has food, water, and care packages that need to be handed out to the civilians. Our job is to get supplies to people who need it, and get people who need medical help to the Red Cross tent."

Loki cocked his head to the side. "They can't get there themselves?"

"Don't question your orders." Folding his arms over his chest, Clint stared the other down, silently daring him to defy the situation he had been put into. He might have received a warm welcome from Bruce, and Steve was slowly warming up to him in an attempt to aid the doctor, but Clint had no reason at all to coax him. "You're not in charge anymore, _Levi. _Just do as you're told." He reached out and tapped the center of the other's chest.

It gave him satisfaction seeing Loki's features twist with pent-up rage, knowing that there were so many insults and sneers pushing on the inside of the god's teeth but also knowing none of them would see the light of day. Loki didn't have a choice. It was, quite literally, do or die.

"How many per person?"

Clint smirked lightly. "I'll show you." He walked over to the truck and unlocked the door with the key he had been given during the debriefing. Lifting the latch and pulling the two doors open, he stepped inside, handing a large box of care packages down to Loki. He didn't bother to hide the grin when Loki buckled slightly under the weight.

"What? You can handle a little heavy lifting, can't you?" He disappeared before Loki could answer and came back a moment later with two cases of water in his arms. "You give one package to each person, and when we get out the food, we'll be handing them out based on family size. Water just goes to everyone. That truck shouldn't have a single bottle on it by the time we're done."

"Wouldn't it be easier to have people line up to—?"

"Excuse me, mister?"

Loki stopped mid-sentence and looked down at the rather filthy young girl that had just grabbed onto his shirt, revulsion curling his lips. "Yes?" he questioned, arching an eyebrow.

"Can I, um, have two of those?" she asked, pointing at the box Loki was holding and getting on her tiptoes in an attempt to look inside.

Loki scowled, moving the box out of her reach. "What do you need two for?"

"My mommy, duh." She looked at him like he was an idiot, as children are often prone to do, and then reached towards the box again. "Can I have two?"

Loki opened his mouth to respond, but Clint intervened, suspecting that Loki was not used to dealing with children on a regular basis. The last thing either of them needed was an injured, angry mother storming over and making a scene because Loki made her daughter cry.

Clint set the water down with a grunt and crouched in front of the girl, speaking softly. "Is your mommy sick?"

The girl shook her head, tangled blonde hair flying over her shoulders, hands tugging on the hems of her once white shorts. "No, her leg got hurt real bad."

_"Very badly,"_ Loki corrected.

Clint gave the other man a glare and then faced the girl again. "What's your name?"

"Brianna." She eyed the box of packages again, obviously very intent on getting what she came for, feet wiggling around anxiously in her flip-flops.

"Well, Brianna, I have a mission for you. I want you to take as many water bottles as you can and lead my partner, Levi, to where your mommy is. Then he'll give you two packages, and once he knows where you are, he can tell the medics so they can help your mommy if she needs it. Okay?"

Brianna gave an enthusiastic nod, bouncing up and down as she waited to be handed the water. Clint gave her four bottles, which she wrapped her arms around and held to her chest, and then with a giggle she was running down the street.

The Hawk gave Loki a pat on the shoulder, squeezing the joint and giving him a bright smile. "Have fun, Levi."

Loki glared.

* * *

Emerald hues rolled up and over, a heavy sigh pushing between pale lips as he continued to amble along behind the little human girl who seemed very content to tell him every single, little, minute, insignificant thought that popped into her head.

"…my doll, and I didn't think that was fair, but then I also kinda figured she didn't have anything of her own, yanno, and I mean—I mean, I don't have much, either anymore, but she had even less so I just let her take it."

"Fascinating," he drawled.

She stuck her tongue out at him. "You're mean."

Loki gasped, his voice full of dramatic flair. "Say it isn't so."

"Jerk." Brianna stomped ahead, growing closer and closer to a fairly large overhang along the front of a mostly demolished building that had yet to see repairs. "Yanno, if you weren't carryin' my stuff, I'd kick you."

He exhaled loudly, sweat trickling down his upper lip. "Oh, would you now?"

"Yeah, I would. I don't like mean people."

Loki smirked. "But if you kick me, doesn't that make you a mean person?"

"Nope." Brianna shook her head, hair flying in all different directions again, and the fallen god was starting to think she just liked the feeling of wind in her hair. "Because that's fair."

"How so?" he questioned, vaguely aware that he hadn't paid much attention to where they were going or where they had been. "You're just a child. Who are you to define right and wrong, and serve justice accordingly?"

She turned around and huffed at him, stomping her foot. "Why do you ask so many questions, huh?" Her little cheeks started to turn red, her brow scrunching up. "Look, it's simple. If you do nice things, people are nice back, and nobody gets hurt. If you do mean things, people are mean back, and everybody gets hurt. Get it?" Shaking her head, she turned around and started to march again.

Loki marched after her, fuming but silently reminding himself that the sooner these supplies got handed out, the sooner he could go back to his cell and be alone. Besides, it wasn't as if she actually won the argument, and that wasn't what was making him angry anyway. It was the insolent disrespect that seemed to ooze from the very skin of human beings.

_I am a god and a king, and I deserve respect. It's ludicrous._

"Mommy! Mommy, I got the helper person!" Brianna broke into a half run, half skip, stopping at the blue sleeping bag against the far wall. Dropping to her knees, she set the four bottles down and reached out to shake her mother by the shoulder. "Mommy, wake up. I got a helper person, and you have to drink water."

There was no movement from within the bag, and Loki felt his frustration grow that much hotter. Setting the box down with a huff, he moved to the sleeping back and unzipped the upper portion, pulling it down to reveal a woman's disheveled, sleeping face.

"Mommy!" Brianna shouted, giving her another shove and trying to wake her up.

Loki ignored the attempts and frowned at the mother's pale complexion, feeling her forehead and instantly recoiling at the heat. _On Asgard, only infants are susceptible to fevers, but there is no doubt in my mind that a fever is what she is suffering from._

His hands wandered down the woman's body to her arm, taking a hold of the wrist and feeling for a pulse. For a moment, he thought there was none, but then he started to feel a very faint rhythm under his fingers. _Magic. _But he didn't have his magic, and he wasn't able to give that heartbeat what it needed in order to get stronger.

"Brianna, your mother is sick. We have to take her to the medical tent." _So Barton won't kill me, _he added silently, quickly unzipping the rest of the bag and trying to figure out the best way to pick her up.

"No!" the girl objected, jumping up and pushing her hands against his chest. "No, Mommy said we can't afford it. She said she'll be better, we just have to wait."

Loki shook his head. He didn't know much about the human immune system, but the woman wasn't waking up or breathing normally. From the looks of things, the injury on her leg had been treated once but had gotten worse, if the blood and yellow ooze was any indication.

"It's not optional. Now, pick up your water bottles and let's go."

"No, you can't—"

Loki glared at her, his tone cold and sharp. "Do you want your mother to _die_, Brianna?" He watched the pale blue eyes widen in fear, pressing her when she didn't respond. "Well, do you?"

She ducked her head, shaking it back and forth with a miserable whine. "No…"

"Then let's go."

Placing an arm beneath the woman's knees and torso, Loki lifted her from the ground and started to walk back the way they had come. _I know we only took one turn, so I simply have to look left and right at every corner until I see the tent. _He glanced over his shoulder and noticed that Brianna was lagging behind. "Keep _up, _please."

She ran for a stretch and then fell in step beside him, falling behind a moment later due to the difference in their height. Then she ran again, still not speaking, no doubt still dwelling on and fretting over Loki's words.

_Not so haughty now, are you? Good._

Loki stopped suddenly, squinting against the sun and seeing both the truck and the tent down the road to their left. Clint was handing out boxes from the back of the truck, but he had told Loki to take people who needed help to the medical tent.

"Brianna, hold my shirt and do _not _get lost."

She did as she was told without hesitation, and as he felt her hand shaking against his side, his lips pulled up into a small, satisfied smile. He banished it quickly, just in case anyone was watching them, and then started weaving his way through the people sitting and standing around, waiting for care packages and sweating like dogs in the sun. He chose to ignore the fact that he was also sweating like a dog in the sun, leaving the water on his face and neck unacknowledged.

Pushing his way through the patients-in-waiting, Loki approached the entrance to the tent and tried to get the attention of a young male worker. "Excuse me, you—"

"Please get in the line, sir, and we'll be with you as soon as possible," the man said quickly, not turning away from his task of what appeared to be paperwork.

Loki's eyebrow twitched. "Turn around this instant!"

"Sir, I said—" The worker stopped mid-turn and mid-lecture, eyes widening at the sight of the woman in Loki's arms. "What happened?"

"How should I know? I found her like this after this little girl lead me to the place where they were staying. She barely has a pulse." He extended his arms towards the male. "Here."

"Sir—" he took a step back, "—we don't have that kind of equipment here."

Loki didn't even try to contain his disdain. "You are the Red Cross, are you not? You must, at the very least, know how to get her to a place where they _do _have the proper equipment." He scanned the other's form and spied a nametag half hidden under a sweat towel. "Brandon, is it? Brandon, if you do not know how to handle the situation, get someone who does and be quick about it."

Obviously overwhelmed, he ducked into the tent and started to call out an unfamiliar name. Meanwhile, Loki turned to Brianna and gave her a pointed look. "You're supposed to be drinking water. Open one of those bottles and get to it."

Brianna set the water down but then stopped, looking up and blinking.

"Honestly, I leave you alone for ten minutes—"

Loki turned back around, meeting Clint's gaze evenly and interrupting with a quick, hard, "I didn't do anything that wasn't in my _orders_, Barton."

Brianna pulled a bottle to her mouth and started sipping, watching the two men closely.

"You didn't have to," the archer replied, his voice more irritated than angry. "It just figures that you, of all people, would be the one to find a hiccup that no one was prepared for." Clint rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. "What—"

He was interrupted by two nurses coming out of the tent, but Loki could tell by the look in his eyes that the conversation was not over.

_Glorious._

* * *

"Do you think she's gonna be okay?"

Loki opened up what had to be the fiftieth box of care packages and dragged his arm across his forehead, letting out an exasperated sigh. "If I didn't know two hours ago, why would I know now?"

Brianna sighed sadly, sitting on the edge of the truck and swinging her legs back and forth. "I'm just worried." She bit her lip. "Was she really sick?"

"Why would you ask a thing like that?" he questioned, putting some of the contents into a smaller box before opening another and placing the half-empty box on top of it. "Come on, get your box. I don't have time to stand here all day."

Brianna hopped down from the trailer and picked up her box, shuffling on her feet. "Well, you just kinda… everyone freaked out and took her. Did anybody really make sure she needed to go?"

Clint, who seemed to appear and disappear without rhyme or reason, rounded the back end of the truck and pushed himself into the conversation. "Hon, these people are trained to recognize potentially fatal signs. Your mommy had to go to the hospital to get better."

Loki counted the contents of his combined boxes, if only to give himself a reason not to acknowledge Clint's presence, and then grabbed both of them and started to stand. He got up about two feet before his vision blurred and then faded to black, forcing him down to one knee and sending his pulse sky high.

"Levi?"

He turned his head towards Brianna, but her face remained obstructed by black splotches for several moments, clarity coming to him slowly and leaving him with an almost numbing sort of weakness in his muscles. _What just happened?_

"I—I'm alright."

Clint frowned at him.

Loki returned the expression. "What?"

"You stumbled ten minutes ago, too." He paused, looking the other over and placing his hand on his chin. "Have you been drinking water?"

For a moment, Loki thought Clint was taunting him, and he was seconds away from making a retort when he noticed something familiar. Clint said he saw him stumble ten minutes earlier, and that meant he was watching Loki, and the only time he had ever seen the Hawk watch people that closely was during the time when Clint worked for him. He always knew where everyone was and what they were doing at any given time.

_He's working. This is his job, and he's treating it as such. He has to ensure that I'm healthy or he'll get an earful from Thor. He's following orders._

"Sometime today, please." Clint tapped his bicep with his index finger, staring the other down with an impatient expression painted on his face.

"I… I wasn't aware that I… needed to be."

Clint blinked. "You're joking. We spent several hours handing out water bottles and encouraging people to drink as much as they can, and it didn't occur to you that you should probably be drinking some too?"

When the archer put it that way, it made Loki look like an absolute idiot, and that didn't bode well at all. "I have never needed water to stay conscious before," he snapped, grabbing the boxes again with every intention of ignoring his designated supervisor's advice just for spite.

Clint moved in the blink of an eye, pushing the boxes back to the ground and speaking in a low, half-mumbled tone. "You weren't _human_ before." Then, at a normal speaking volume, he continued. "It's almost one hundred degrees out here. Water will save your skin on a day like today, so sit on the truck and drink at least two bottles before you get back to work."

Loki glared. "I don't need to, and I won't."

Clint crossed his arms over his chest. "You don't need to, huh?" He pointed to the stop sign on the corner. "Then let's have a little race. If you're not dehydrated you should have no problem winning or at least making it all the way without passing out."

Twisting where he sat, he looked at the sign in question and licked his lips briefly. It wasn't even that far, but with that sudden spell of blackness, he wasn't honestly certain of what his body could do.

"Why should I? I'm supposed to be working, and so are you."

Brianna pointed a finger at him, poking his upper arm. "If you won't race, that means you know you're gonna lose!"

Loki chomped at her finger, drawing a squeal from the girl, and then slowly got to his feet, dusting himself off and looking down the street. "To that sign?"

"Yup." Clint moved to Loki's side and cracked his neck, stretching his muscles and rolling his shoulders. "You sure you want to do this? It's just water, Levi."

But it wasn't just water. It was Clint, his former slave, talking down to him like an idiot and asserting his newfound authority over him. It was about being sassed by a nine-year-old and having the simplest little things enforced just for the sake of protocol. It didn't even matter that they were right. It was the principal of the thing, and Loki had no intentions of backing down now.

"If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't do it." Loki glanced at him. "Whenever you're ready."

Clint looked over his shoulder. "Brianna, will you do the honors?"

"Yes!" She jumped up to her feet and stood in front of them on the left. "On your mark, get set, go!" Brianna dropped her arm like a flag, and both men took off running.

It didn't take long for Loki to realize that this was far beyond the boundaries of what his body could handle. In seconds, blackness started to swarm his vision and that thundering pulse from before was striking his eardrums. His legs were tingling—for a moment, he wondered of humans ever lost their legs—and his head was swimming in a sea of cotton balls.

Curse his pride, which kept his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth.

Curse his human body, which gave out halfway to the stop sign.

Curse the sidewalk, which slammed against his body right before he blacked out.


	9. Chapter 9

It was loud.

Noise filtered through the cotton in his ears unceasingly—a mechanical sort of hum that slowly faded into warbled, disconnected speech patterns. Like a one-sided conversation without any distinct words he could understand, the noise continued, volume rising and falling along with pitch, clarity coming slowly as his brain struggled to repair its connection with his ears.

_What… happened…? _He tried to turn his head but stopped immediately, face contorting as pain throbbed throughout his skull, a thick groan rising in his throat.

"Well, well, well. Look who finally woke up." He felt a pair of hands slide beneath his arms and pull him up into a sitting position, his teeth clenching as his head bumped against something solid. "Now, will you agree to drink water, or would you rather have another make out session with the concrete?"

Loki forced his eyes open, exhaling sharply when he met Clint's gaze, a flood of memories rushing to the forefront of his mind. "I—" He coughed and grasped at his throat, convinced for a moment that the archer had crushed his windpipe while he was unconscious.

Clint held an open bottle up to his mouth. "Here."

If any of the pride or indignation Loki felt during their first confrontation was still around, it vanished the moment he felt the cool bottle beneath his fingertips. He grabbed onto it without complaint, taking small sips that slowly got larger and faster the more he realized just how thirsty he was.

"Don't drink too fast. You'll get sick."

Loki blinked in confusion and lowered the bottle, loathe to stop drinking when it felt _so _good and not understanding how he could possibly get sick from this blessed, much-needed fluid. "What?"

Clint repeated himself, rising to his feet and crossing his arms over his chest, his expression clearly stating that he wouldn't nurse Loki's stubbornness a second time. "I said, don't drink too fast, or you will get sick."

Loki's gaze flickered around the room, Clint's movement drawing his attention to their location, and he realized it was his bedroom back at the tower. All he could assume was that Clint had brought him here after he passed out, and that could mean many, many things.

But that wasn't important right now.

"Hmph. Humans are ridiculous," he snorted, taking a small sip anyway, and returned his gaze to the archer's face. "If you don't drink enough, you get sick; if you drink too fast, you get sick. I bet if you drink too much you get sick, too."

Clint nodded sharply, his expression completely unreadable. "It takes a lot, but it's possible. People have died from drinking too much water."

"You're joking." Loki shook his head, scoffing before taking another long sip that, regrettably, emptied the plastic bottle. "Humans are painfully weak." He twisted the cap back on, looking up to ask Clint if he could have another one, but the words never made it past his teeth.

Solid weight collided with his hips, crushing pressure enveloping his throat from every side, cutting off the necessary flow of oxygen in less than a second. His hands flew up instinctively, grasping at the hold on his neck and pulling as hard as he could, his brain sputtering as it tried to comprehend the sudden change in the situation.

"B—Barton!" Loki gasped, pushing against the other's weight and trying to draw his knees up far enough to kick. "S—" He choked on the unspoken word, screwing his eyes shut as the grip grew steadily tighter, fingers digging relentlessly into Clint's wrists but gaining no relief.

Panic shrouded his mind in a thick veil of fear, but even through the haze and innate survival instincts demanding his attention, he was able to grasp one thought clearly.

_He's going to kill me._

Gasping, struggling, tugging futilely on his assailant's arms, he counted down the seconds, waiting for some physical indication that his lungs were finally giving out and it was over. Forcing his eyes open, he tried to find the door, hoping against hope that he would see Bruce, or Thor, or Steve, or anyone else who would be willing to get his attacker off of him.

_He's going to kill me. Help. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me._

Knives raked down the walls of his throat, his body lurching forward as oxygen suddenly coursed back into his body, shoulders heaving as a violent coughing fit came over him in waves, racking his body. He pressed both hands to his chest, clawing at the burning lungs beneath and trying to find Clint through the tears in his eyes.

_What happened?_

For a moment, he worried that Clint was going to come at him from another angle or try to take his life by different means, but when he found the agent, he was simply sitting in the bedside chair with another round of chilled water in his hand. Loki pushed back against the headboard, wheezing loudly, limbs shaking, lungs slowly regaining what the strangulation had taken from them.

"W-why did you—" he coughed again, burying his mouth in the crook of his arm, "—stop?"

"I wasn't trying to kill you." Clint replied with a terrifyingly calm demeanor for someone who had just been grasping a man's throat between his hands. "You said humans are painfully weak, so I decided to give you some firsthand experience."

Loki continued to pant, struggling not to hyperventilate or damage his throat any more than Clint already had. "You could h—ave killed me!" He hated the way the H caught in his throat, saliva choking him between gasps.

"No, I couldn't have. I knew exactly what I was doing." Blue eyes narrowed sharply, the chair creaking slightly as Clint leaned forward. "But someone else certainly could have."

Loki blinked in confusion, his eyes shifting from the water bottle and Clint unceasingly.

"You're not a god anymore, Loki. You don't have the kind of freedom that you used to, and I'm not talking about this cell or the cameras or the sensors." Catching Loki's gaze, he extended the water towards him, still speaking. "I won't kill you because it would go against my orders, but if you tick off some stranger in a bar or on the streets, you could wind up dead or worse."

Swallowing hard, Loki grabbed the drink and sipped small amounts, the liquid in his throat an odd combination of refreshing and painful. _He's right. My own body is more of a cell than anything I've been taken in or out of since my capture two years ago. _He felt his hand shaking again, the rippling water making it painfully obvious just how unsteady he was. _Get it together, get it together. He's not going to kill me. I'm fine, it's fine, it's just this—this weak, mortal body that's the problem._

Clint had accomplished his goal, though. Loki was now painfully aware of how fragile his body was, and he wondered how many times he had almost died leading up to this. What about when he first instigated Captain Rogers? What if the man had reacted in anger instead of calm? What about Bruce? It wasn't like he wanted to wake the Hulk, but had he realized before just how excruciating that would be? How it would end for him?

"Here, give me the water." The Hawk took it from his hands before he could answer, and then the sheets were being lifted up. "Get some rest. You need it."

Loki froze, glancing at the bed and then at Clint's face. He didn't want to sleep—he wasn't even sure that he could if he did want to—but he couldn't very well tell the man no. Not when he could still feel those fingers wrapped around his neck. "I… what do I need to know about sleeping…?" he asked, cautiously easing himself down onto the mattress.

"You need it to survive, and if you don't get enough, you won't be able to function properly." Clint handed him the blankets and allowed him to adjust them how he saw fit. "You're not really in danger while you're asleep, except for the fact that you can't defend yourself."

Loki swallowed, raw flesh objecting to the movement. "I see." He looked up at Clint, his forehead creasing slightly. "Is—is there still more work to do?"

Clint shook his head but then paused, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a woven, multi-color rope. "This is from Brianna. She said to get better." He placed it on the dresser and turned to leave.

"Where is she?" If he were honest with himself, he would admit that the words were more to keep Barton from leaving than to actually learn what happened. _What if something goes wrong? How will I know whether or not I'm in danger of dying? I don't have any idea how to treat strangulation!_

Clint stopped and turned back towards his bedridden prisoner. "She's staying with some neighbors. She seemed pretty happy." Crossing his arms over his chest, he stood at the foot of the bed and watched the god carefully. "Loki."

The trickster swallowed again, reminding himself of his close call. "Y-yes?" He could have killed himself for that pitiful stammer.

"You're not going to die. You'll get bruising around your throat where I grabbed you, and you might get some red flecks on your face, but you're not going to lose your voice or die or whatever else you're thinking might happen." He sighed, obviously annoyed by the situation but realizing he couldn't very well let Loki work himself into a series of panic attacks unsupervised. "You're _fine_. I'm going to leave and get lunch. I'll bring something down for you in a bit."

Loki nodded shakily, clutching the bed sheets and willing himself not to tremble. It didn't work, of course, so he hung his head and let humiliation burn across his cheeks until he heard the door close and lock.

_I almost died… I almost died… I almost died…_

Inhaling slowly, he pulled one of the pillows to his chest and grasped it tightly, finding that it helped to relieve the ache in his ribcage. His throat still burned, head throbbing from the combined lack of air and water.

_I almost __**died.**_

* * *

He didn't, though, and the next two weeks were spent reading, working on the streets, and meeting with Bruce. Steve brought him meals every day, three times a day, and took him to and from sessions. He worked with Clint on the streets until the agent felt comfortable letting him go with Natasha or Bruce, after which he worked on the streets with Dr. Banner if at all possible.

Bruises had shown up, just as Clint said they would, but Loki had made use of the turtleneck shirts in his drawers and kept them covered. He had never had bruises before, so when he woke up from his nap and saw that there were dark marks all over his neck, he almost sent himself into a second bout of coughing, wheezing, and panicking. After remembering Clint's words, however, he spent the next several minutes looking at them in the mirror and lightly touching them, unable to understand how it could hurt when there was no opening in his skin.

Sessions with Bruce had contained any number of different topics of conversation, most of them revolving about Loki's knowledge of Asgard, which would occasionally cause him to slip into stories he might not have shared under other circumstances. Bruce managed to get Loki to talk about some of his likes and dislikes, which lead to a stack of new books and a calligraphy set showing up on his dresser one day. Still, Loki felt that he had not revealed anything incriminating. So far, so good.

Steve made it a point to eat his meals with Loki, and he had left right after bringing the food on only one occasion. Sometimes Loki and Steve would talk, sometimes just Steve would talk, and sometimes neither of them would talk. Steve asked about the bruises—Loki shut him down, just like he did everyone else. Loki sometimes asked about the tower he was living in and the other Avengers, but Steve returned the favor of silence, placing walls around any information he considered sensitive. Loki couldn't blame him.

If asked, Loki would have said things were going well. They weren't optimal, but they weren't discouraging either. There were many ways he could manipulate the situation he was in, many ways he could get under his enemies' skin. He just had to find a way to get more information and then wait for the right time. Compliance was his friend for the sake of convincing, but he was far from repentant. The Avengers would sorely regret stopping him the first time he tried to rule Midgard, and more than that, they would regret keeping him alive.

Because just as the words implied, there _would _be a second time.

* * *

"I hope you don't mind, but after we talked yesterday, I got very interested in the rest of the royal family, and I decided to pick up some books on Norse mythology from the library." Bruce adjusted his glasses and opened the first book to one of the pages he had marked. "I'm sure a lot of it really is just myths, but I thought I'd run some of these things by you."

"No, I did not give birth to a horse."

Bruce looked up, smiling when he saw the disdainful look on Loki's face. He initially assumed Loki didn't know much about Midgardian myths, but seeing as these particular tales were actually about the god of mischief himself, it made sense that Loki had caught wind of them at some time or another.

"Have you been asked that before?" Bruce asked, still smiling.

Emerald eyes sharpened. "You could say that."

Bruce recognized the warning tone in the man's voice and let the subject drop, tucking that little bit of information away for later. Clearing his throat, he moved on to the tale depicted on his lap. "What about Sigyn? Is she real?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "If she is, I've never heard of her." He paused to sip his tea. "That's just how it goes. If there's a man, there has to be a woman, and vice versa. It's simply not a story if the main character isn't in love, so humanity decided to fill in the gaps left by the reality of my bachelorship."

Chuckling softly, Bruce removed his bookmark and replied, "Do you enjoy being single, or do you think you'd like to settle down in a couple thousand years?"

There was a certain dignity and pomp to the way Loki replied. "I quite like being, as you say, single. Thor loves to be lead around like a beast on a leash, but I have yet to find myself in a situation where I feel I want to share the rest of my life with another being." Taking another sip, he crossed his legs and leaned back, waiting for the next question.

"I can understand that." Bruce looked back down at the book for a moment and then back up. "If Sigyn isn't real, you probably don't know this guy, either." He squinted at the page, wondering if he was even pronouncing half of these correctly. "Baldur? Does that sound familiar to you?"

Loki, who was suddenly rigid in his seat, gave a slight nod and put his cup down, placing both of his hands in his lap. He started to pick at his hands and fingers, as he was prone to do when he felt uncomfortable, and Bruce watched in thinly veiled surprise as the god started to answer.

"Baldur… was the older brother of both Thor and I." He paused. "Well, no, I suppose he was just Thor's older brother, but at the time I didn't know that, so I don't think it makes a difference in this case." His lips were tight, his shoulders were squared, and his jaw was set.

_This is obviously a sensitive topic, but he's talking to me. That's a big step for him. _Bruce nodded, setting the book on the table and making himself comfortable, a silent indication of his willingness to listen to the story, no matter how long. Giving a small, encouraging smile, he folded his hands over his stomach and waited.

Loki wet his lips, considering the other man for a few seconds before continuing his tale. "He was a likable man, to say the least, and he certainly had everyone's favor. Even Thor was unable to charm father out of trouble if Baldur was a witness. He was… perfect." There was no adoration in his voice, just a dark and venomous detestation, as though the word left a bitter taste on his tongue. "M—Queen Frigga even took the trouble of going around to every living thing in all the Nine Realms and making them vow never to hurt him."

Dr. Banner blinked. "Wow." He blinked again, shaking his head. "That's intense."

"Mm-hmm." Loki turned to look at the far wall, fingers curling and uncurling in his lap. "She didn't do it for anyone else, and I imagine that it was a lot of work. That should give you a picture of how much he was adored."

It wasn't hard for Bruce to catch the real meaning behind Loki's words. It wasn't that she didn't do it for anyone else, it was that she didn't do it for Loki. Even though she knew Loki was weaker than his two older brothers, even though she knew Loki wasn't really Asgardian and that it could have bad drawbacks, she still didn't protect him the way she did Baldur.

Bruce took a sip of his tea and gestured for the other to continue.

"Well, he grew in fame and valor, as the sons of Odin are prone to do, and word got around of his invincibility to practically everything." His legs uncrossed, palms resting on his thighs as his fingers continued to jerk and jitter. "Unfortunately, there were a few choice objects that Frigga did not make a vow with because she felt they were too young. One of them was mistletoe."

"Wait," Bruce held up a hand, leaning forward to grab his tea with a baffled look on his face. "Did you say mistletoe was too young?"

Loki nodded. "Realms all have different ages and rates at which they develop. Midgard is the youngest, and mistletoe was a plant the Queen felt was too young to bargain with. I believe the two other realms that held such creatures were… Alfheim and Nidavillir, but they are irrelevant to this story." Pausing to take a drink and collect his thoughts, Loki allowed his gaze to wander back to Bruce's face. "Baldur was shot and killed with mistletoe, supposedly by someone who infiltrated the palace, although we were never able to track them down. Odin went to Hel to try and make a deal with Hela, the ruler there. She told him that if every living thing on Earth wept for Baldur, she would allow him to return to us, alive and well. Of course, we all went to Midgard, running from one end to the other and back again, telling every living thing to weep for him. It almost worked, but… there was one who would not."

Bruce frowned, finishing his tea and setting the empty cup on the coffee table. "Why wouldn't they cry for him? Did they have a grudge or something?"

Tension racked the god's frame again, and Bruce got the feeling he struck a nerve, but Loki spoke anyway. "We do not know who it was. All we know is that we went to every corner of the earth and asked everyone we encountered, and none of them refused. Either it was the assassin in hiding, or some creature that was small enough to hide from us and didn't want to bring Baldur back." He placed his own empty cup on the table beside his host's. "Some speculated that it was Jormungandr, who is also not my offspring, though I did watch over him for the majority of his youth, but there was no proof of that claim, either. Regardless, in the end, Baldur stayed in Hel, and life went on."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Bruce sympathized, sensing the story had come to a close. "It must have been hard for you. Don't take this the wrong way, but given your history with Thor, I imagine there was a lot of mixed feelings about the situation for you."

For all his masks, Loki was not able to conceal the look of shock on his face. "I—yes, I suppose it… was."

Bruce smiled and nodded a few times. "It's not all that uncommon. Even in situations where there's no hatred but simply… fatigue or sorrow, death can bring complicated emotions."

Loki frowned and folded his arms over his abdomen, eyes flickering over Bruce's form in search of deceit. "I… have never heard of such a situation."

"Well… for example, there is a disease on Midgard called Alzheimer's, which affects elderly minds. It causes people to forget a lot of things—important things, like who they are and what their kids or spouse look like—and in a lot of cases, their personality changes for the worse. It can get really tiring to take care of someone who doesn't know who you are or who they are, and who can be downright nasty to you because they have no filter for their emotions and thoughts. It's not uncommon for family members have conflicting feelings about the afflicted person passing away. On one hand, the person is dead and they're grieving their loss, but on the other hand, they no longer have to care for someone every second of the day or deal with the emotional stress of that care." He shrugged his shoulders, spreading his hands in an open gesture. "It's not exactly the same, of course, but it's not unheard of either."

Loki only nodded, his expression growing somewhat distant. He stared at the table, hands clenching and unclenching in slow succession, his brow creasing with thought. Bruce didn't say anything for a long while, sitting silently as Loki processed the information he had both shared and received.

_He's getting there. It's getting easier to read his body language, and he isn't trying so hard to mask his expressions and thoughts anymore. Granted, we've got a long, long, long way to go, but I think I can safely say I've got my foot in the door._

"Dr. Banner, tell me more about this… Alzheimer's Disease."

"Sure. Before we start, I should cover the basics of the human brain…"

* * *

"Ready to head back?"

Loki gave the Captain a disapproving look. "If I say no, are you going to let me wander about the tower as I please?" He paused to let the other answer in his own mind. "Then there is no point in asking me whether or not I'm ready."

Steve smiled, pointing down the hall. "If there's no point in my asking, there's no point in your answering, either. Hit the road, Jack."

Staring down the corridor, he turned his head to look at the soldier, brow creased and lips pursed in confusion. "My name is not Jack."

"It's an expression, sort of." Steve fell in step beside him, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Make a new plan, Stan. Hit the road, Jack, and don't come back. See you later, alligator."

Loki blinked again. "Alright, I can understand the generic names, but why would you refer to someone as a reptile? Just because it rhymes?"

Steve nodded. "Pretty much, yeah."

Shaking his head, the god continued down the hall, sighing heavily beneath Steve's quiet chuckles. No matter how much he read or saw, he always felt like he knew absolutely nothing about the realm he was living on. He thought, perhaps, it was because eight of the nine realms had a lot of things in common with each other and maintained communication, whereas Midgard was completely set apart and isolated from the rest of Yggdrasil. It made crossing over into another realm feel like… well, crossing over into another realm.

Loki came to a stop and waited for Steve to open the door to his room, mumbling under his breath about the fact that every time he took this trip, it seemed a little bit shorter. A few seconds later, the door was open, and Loki stepped into his room with muttered thanks.

"Hey! Prince Charming, Spangles, I'm glad you showed."

Both men stared in bewilderment and mild annoyance at the genius sitting cross-legged on top of Loki's bed, a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.

"Stark, what are you doing? This is Loki's room, not yours."

"I know." He jerked his head towards the minibar he had, apparently, brought into the room while they were away. "I don't know if either of you have realized, but Loki has been here for exactly seventeen days and hasn't killed anyone. That's worth celebrating, don't you think?"

"I think you'll take any excuse to drink and party."

Loki watched the exchange between the two, curious to see whether or not sparks would fly, a strange sense of déjà vu coming over him. _Odin and Thor. _Only there was less yelling and spitting, and more glaring and sassy remarks. It was… comical. Almost pleasant, actually.

"Okay, you want a better reason? Uh…" Tony let his voice drag until he thought of something. "Oh! Reindeer Games, remember you took me up on my offer last time you were here, but I never came through on it. So, here is your drink, my good man." He grinned at Steve. "I'm sure you understand the importance of coming through on a promise."

Steve held the same crossed arms, squared shoulders, and disapproving look for a long time before finally surrendering to Tony's insufferable stubbornness. "Fine. We'll have our own little party in here, and then when we're done, you will _leave, _Tony."

"You're mean." He filled his glass again, and Loki had to wonder where he put it all. "But whatever, there's the minibar, so help yourself."

Loki glanced over at the black box, considering it for a moment before shaking his head. "No, I don't think I will. I don't prefer the taste of most alcohol." In truth, he didn't like alcohol because it robbed him of his senses and, without fail, caused him to be ill within fifteen minutes of his first glass.

"So? I'll make you a cocktail or somethi—have you ever had a Long Island Iced Tea? I bet that's something you don't have in your Castle on a Cloud." Tony set his own drink aside and rolled off of the bed, kneeling in front of the minibar and pulling out various different bottles of liquor.

Steve glanced over towards Loki, concern creasing his brow. "Loki, if you don't want a drink, just say no." He offered a smile. "It really is fine."

Loki shook his head—probably too quickly, considering the fact that Steve was already looking for signs of deceit—and removed his shoes, crawling onto the bed and making himself comfortable against the headboard. "It's alright. It's been a while since I let go."

Tony snorted, casting a devilish grin over his shoulder. "If trying to dominate the entire planet wasn't an example of you letting go, maybe I shouldn't let you have a drink, after all."

Wagging a finger, Loki clicked his tongue and chided the other. "Now, now. You made a promise, Anthony. You can't go back on it now."

Steve nodded, grinning. "Your own words, pal."

Tony handed Loki the fresh drink and then reclaimed his own, sitting down next to the god with a contented sigh. "I would come back with a sassy remark, but…" he slouched, one stocking foot hanging off of the bed, "…I'd rather just sit here and do nothing."

Loki nursed the drink, eyes landing on Steve, who was lounging comfortably at the foot of the bed. "Why don't you get a drink, Captain?"

Shrugging his shoulders, he replied, "There's really no point."

Tony shook his head. "Come on, just grab one."

Loki nodded in agreement, watching as Steve's gaze wandered over the minibar. "It will give you something to drink—something to do with your hands." He took another sip, blinking in surprise when he felt mild nausea already setting in.

"Yeah, Cap." Tony nudged Loki with his elbow. "I don't know about girls back in your day, but the ones we've got now love a man who can do something with his hands."

"Very mature, Mr. Stark." But it worked, because Steve relented and grabbed himself a beer, sitting back on the bed and kicking off his shoes just as his two roommates had. "Alright, alright. I'm officially merry-making. Happy now?"

Tony blew his bangs out of his eyes loudly, finishing his fourth glass. "Don't play coy, Stevie. You were in the army. I bet you have a million funny stories about late night drinking."

Steve gave them both a small grin. "Maybe." He took a swig and smacked his lips, smile expanding. "But I'll never tell."

Tony chuckled, looking over at the raven-haired prisoner and nudging him once more. "What about Asgardian girls, Loki?"

Snorting in response, Loki took a drink and tilted his head back. "I think girls in every universe appreciate such talents. Although, I believe on Asgard, it is much more common to find pleasurable handwork in the form of stabbing men who overstep their boundaries."

Steve whistled, shaking his head. "Remind me never to get on their bad sides. PMS up there must be a nightmare." He threw back the other half of the bottle and set it down beside the bed.

"Oh, it is. One time, back when Thor and I were much younger, I managed to convince him to play a prank on Lady Sif, his childhood friend. I orchestrated it, of course, but he was the one who carried it out."

Tony started laughing before the punch line even came, snorting and trying to cover the noises with a drink. Steve glanced at the cooler and then grabbed another beer, sitting back down on the bed and pressing Loki for the ending.

"So, she was on her period?"

"Very much so. She is not a patient woman to begin with, and seeing as she was much younger then _and _on her cycle, well… let's just say Thor was concerned as to whether or not he would be able to have children for quite some time afterwards."

"Ha!" Tony laughed, a light flush now present on his cheeks.

Steve shook his head slowly, trying not to laugh and failing. "Oops."

Loki was able to conceal his own laughter in his drink as he started to take in larger amounts of his so-called tea, draping an arm over his stomach. _Please, just once. I don't want to think, I've been thinking too much. Just once don't let me get sick. _But the rolling in his gut only got worse and worse. And he still didn't want to stop. He didn't want to focus on all of the ways this was probably a trap. _What do humans do when they get sick? Do they throw up as well or do they—do they have to go to the hospital or—?_

"Loki, are you okay?"

His head snapped up, both eyes instantly punishing him by blurring his vision. "I—" Biting down on his lip, he ducked his head, clutching his stomach as the room started to spin.

"Loki—" someone took the drink from his hand and grabbed him by the shoulders, "—Loki, what's wrong?"

Tony pointed to the bathroom. "Maybe, uh—maybe you should take him in there. He looks kinda…" He started to laugh against, shoulders heaving as he finished off the very last of an entire bottle of wine. "He looks kinda green!"

If Loki had the energy, he would have, quite literally, slapped some sense into the drunken inventor. Unfortunately, he did not, and as Steve helped him stand and walk, he found the only thing that mattered was finding somewhere to empty his stomach.

_I shouldn't have tried to—_

He grunted as his knees came in contact with the floor, hearing a quick apology through the cotton in his ears before finding a pair of hands running through his hair. Loki gasped, trying to obtain oxygen around the lump rising in his throat, folding one arm over the back of the toilet seat and pressing his forehead against his sleeve. His stomach lurched and alcohol started to rush back up the way it had come, tears stinging his eyes.

"Hey, is he gonna be okay?" It sounded like Tony, even with the mild slur.

"I think so." Those gentle fingers were still raking through his hair, keeping it away from his face and rubbing his back from time to time. "It was just too strong."

"Man, I thought—hic—I thought because Thor holds his alcohol so well, yanno. I guess I shouldn't have assumed. Every Asgardian is—hic—different, right?"

"But I'm not Asgardian."

He didn't realize he had said the words until they were already out of his mouth, his body still quivering from the exertion he had just endured. Reaching out blindly, he sought the tissue box and grabbed a handful of the white cloths, wiping his face and dropping them into the toilet to be disposed of.

"I'm not Asgardian," he repeated, his voice hardly above a whisper. He fell against the side of the tub, staring at his clothes through the inebriated haze. "I thought I was. I always thought—but I'm not, and he knew."

"Loki." Steve flushed the sickness away and then sat next to the frazzled mischief maker, placing a hand on his knee. "Who knew?"

"Odin, of course!" The words came out angrily, but he hadn't the notion to recant them. "Frigga, too. They knew they were lying to me… for over a _thousand years_…" He laughed, covering his mouth because it really _wasn't _funny but still failing to keep in the noise. "They—they spent all those years lying to me and manipulating me, and then—even when they knew I could never have the—they still pretended to—" Pain flashed across his knuckles and into his hand and wrist, the drywall giving beneath his fist.

"Hey, don't do that." Steve gently took Loki's hand and pulled it away from the wall, hanging onto it and rubbing the tender knuckles.

Tony, who had remained silent up until this point, wandered over to the toilet and closed the lid, sitting on top and letting out a sigh. "Hey, I mean—we've all been lied to. We know what it's like." He shrugged his shoulders. "I lost my dad when I was young, and the man who raised me from that point forward tried to kill me just a handful of years ago. It's hard. No one expects you to bounce back right away."

Loki shook his head, staring blankly at the wall. "That's exactly what they expect," he whispered, shaking his head again. "They never noticed, that's what they expected when…" His head dropped even lower, chin landing on his chest as his eyes starting to burn again, this time for a different reason.

"Loki, why don't you go to bed? It's been a long day, and you could use a good night's sleep." Steve shifted Loki into his arms and carried him to the adjacent room, the god's lips sewn together by fatigue and pain. "I'm going to clean this stuff up, and Tony will stay for a little while longer." He put Loki on the bed and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Just… sleep it off, okay?"

"Uh…" Loki made a noise of agreement after a few moments, struggling to get the sheets out from under himself and flopping down on his pillow with a grunt.

_…lied to me why did they lie to me I don't understand Thor doesn't understand I can't trust Odin I won't trust Frigga I'm a frost giant I'm Asgardian I'm both I'm neither I don't understand why did they lie to me my stomach hurts my head hurts I don't understand why do I feel this way what did I drink who is talking to me I—_

Sleep.

* * *

Consciousness came begrudgingly to the front of Loki's mind, his head pounding from the previous night's festivities. Or at least, that was what he assumed. He couldn't actually remember much of what happened after Tony handed him the Long Island Iced Tea, although he figured that was probably for the best.

_I probably made a fool out of myself… _He sighed, rolling over in bed and pulling the pillow around his face. _This is why I don't drink. Ugh… hangovers are so much worse when you're a human…_

It disturbed him that he compared himself to a mortal so easily, and he quickly turned his mind away from the topic, thinking instead about the day ahead of him. _I wonder if they'll make me work outside like this… maybe I can convince them that I need to stay in bed all day… perhaps—_

As if on cue, the door flew open, and Steve's voice shot across the room. "Get up, we need to go. Now." He didn't even step over the threshold.

Loki frowned and sat up, taking a moment to collect himself before responding. "I'm coming… be patient…" Slowly easing himself onto his feet, he took an unsteady step towards his chest of drawers, followed by another, and then another, his hands taking a moment to figure out which knob had to be pulled in order to find clean shirts.

"Loki."

He turned, arching a brow. "What?"

Steve's expression was grave, like the kind one would wear to a funeral or a trial. "Right now. We have to go _now_."

Loki swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, trying to suppress his panic and failing. Why would Steve wake him and make him leave his room so suddenly? Why wouldn't he let him get dressed? Although, Steve didn't look very dressed himself. Why wasn't Steve dressed and groomed?

_What's happening?_

But he didn't say a word out loud, choosing instead to push his way through the door and follow Steve down the hall, his anxiety climbing with every step he took. He tried to recall whether or not he had done anything to provoke anyone or given anybody reason to be suspicious of him. Could it have been the alcohol?

"Captain, I—"

"I can't tell you." Steve licked his lips, glancing over his shoulder for half of a second before facing forward again, his jaw set. "I don't even know all of the details myself. Just stay close."

Loki had no intention of wandering off—at least, not until he knew what was causing the disturbance—and he increased his pace to match the soldier's, taking note of his new surroundings when they took a different route than usual.

_Something's wrong, he's taking me somewhere new, he doesn't know all of what's going on, it involves me in some way, and he can't tell me anything. _It wasn't much information to go on, but listing the facts in his head still made him feel a little bit better.

"Hurry," Steve muttered, opening the door and ushering Loki in.

He did as he was told and entered the small meeting room, looking around and finding nothing but seriousness on everyone's faces. No one spoke, and as Steve entered the room behind him and shut the door, Loki let his eyes fall on the last person in the room.

"Thor."

The thunderer winced, as if his own name was painful to his ears. "Loki… I have come bearing bad news." He rose from his chair and crossed the room, stopping just a few feet in front of his once little brother.

Loki crossed his arms over his chest, trying to cover the fact that his hands were shaking. If Thor had bad news that the Avengers didn't already know about, then Loki had a pretty good idea of what that news was. "Has your oh-so-honorable father changed his mind about your plan?"

Thor sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Not exactly… it is a temporary arrangement, more for political reasons than anything else, and—" his voice picked up here, and Loki could practically taste the desperation to clear Odin's name, "—and I am sure Father would not have agreed to it if it weren't for the threat of war."

Loki sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was too early, and he was too hung-over to be dealing with this. "Just spit it out already."

Thor was silent for a moment but then squared his shoulders and inhaled deeply. "Loki… I have come to tell you… that you are being moved to Jotunheim."

Loki's heart stopped beating in his chest.


	10. Chapter 10

"Loki, you are being moved to Jotunhe—"

"I heard you the first time!" Loki glared sharply at the blonde oaf in front of him, drawing himself up to his full height and spitting in the other's face as he spoke. "Tell me, what pathetic _excuse _has he come up with _this _time?"

Thor swallowed, holding up his hands with the palms facing outward as if to defend himself. "Loki, let me explain. I think… I think I can answer a lot of your questions by doing so, and then whatever questions you have left… you may ask them then."

Snarling, he took a step back and folded his arms over his chest, never once allowing the ice and fire to flee from his eyes. He was livid, and he wanted Thor to know that. He wanted the whole room to know that.

"I…" Thor glanced around the room briefly and then cleared his throat, lowering his hands and making an attempt at laying out the situation in a calm and delicate manner. "I returned only to speak with Heimdall, for I wanted to ensure that the peace between the Nine Realms had not faltered in my absence. I swear, Loki, I had no intentions of discussing your sentence with our—with my father."

Loki scowled, eyes narrowing as Thor's behavior grew increasingly strange. He had noticed it slightly when he first arrived at the tower, but he hadn't thought much of it at the time, and he hadn't spoken to Thor even once since then. But it was painfully obvious now, and the trickster couldn't help but wonder if Thor was under some kind of spell.

_He's being calm and level-headed, and he hasn't called me his brother once that I can recall. It's almost as if he's finally gotten it through his thick skull that we are not kin, but… if that were true, then why bother going through all of this trouble to keep me out of Odin's clutches?_

Sighing softly, Thor rubbed the back of his neck and continued. "However, while I was speaking with Heimdall, a guard came from the palace and said my father had summoned me. It seems he was waiting for my return..."

Loki tapped his foot, the anger in his eyes never diminishing, even as Thor stared at him dolefully, silently pleading for forgiveness. "Continue, please. I think can figure out that you wound up at the throne room in some way or another."

Thor rubbed his hands on his thighs, trying to keep his anxiety as inconspicuous as possible and, for the most part, failing. "Odin asked me how the sentence was working out, and I told him that things were going very well. I explained some of the situations here—such as the street work and your accommodations—and then he asked whether or not my teammates agreed with my judgment."

Eyes widened slightly, every muscle in the god's body seizing at those words. _Of course. It doesn't matter if Thor in his sentimentality believes there is good in me. What is important is the objective views of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. _He forced his body to relax some, letting out a bored sigh. "Get _on _with it, Thor."

"I am getting there!" he snapped angrily, reeling himself in a second later. "This is important, Loki, please let me finish." He paused. "I told him that I could not speak directly for my comrades, but then explained your… relationship with each of them. I told him I would gladly have them write out their thoughts for me to take back, but he did not seem pleased with that suggestion."

Loki filled in the blank for him. "That's when he said I had to go to Jotunheim."

Thor gave a slight nod. "In a sense. Father told me of the negotiations between Asgard and Jotunheim. They are willing to forego war, however… one of their conditions is that you be handed over to their justice system for thirty days."

He couldn't hold back the snort or the bitter laughter that followed. "I see. You start a war with Laufey, and I finish it, so it only makes sense that I am the one to be dragged back in chains. How… typical." Venom drips from his tongue, cutting at the thunder god with every syllable.

"It is not like that, brother!"

"I am not your brother!"

Less than a second later, the front of Loki's shirt was being grasped between two strong, familiar hands. For a moment, he half expected Thor to grab his throat the way Barton had two weeks ago, but that idea was debunked when he felt his feet touching the floor again.

"Loki…" Thor inhaled slowly, deeply, clenching and unclenching his fists in a valiant effort to keep his hands to himself. "I'm trying… to _talk _to you… can you… _please_… cooperate?"

Casting his eyes to the floor on his right, he let out a hiss that slowly dissolved into a sigh. He couldn't explain it. He didn't know if it was a fluke or some odd stroke of luck, or maybe Thor really was under a spell, but he was trying. He was using words, something that made Loki feel secure and strong while making Thor feel awkward and out of his element.

"Alright… Thor." Loki lowered his arms from his chest and licked his lips briefly, trying to keep the utter loathing out of his voice. "So, Jotunheim wants me to spend thirty days in captivity. Is that all, or is there more?"

Thor shook his head. "No. Well, it is the basic idea, but there are many details I haven't discussed. Foremost on this list is the circumstance that allegedly separates our crimes. You deceived and killed Laufey directly, and it is his first wife who has taken the throne. She is…"

"Emotionally involved. Understood." Loki still didn't believe it, but he didn't think Thor was responsible for the lie.

Thor gave a quick nod. "Yes, exactly. Father did manage to work out some compromises, though. I can visit you at any time, and with permission, Dr. Banner and the Captain may come see you as well."

_Visitors won't do me much good when I'm dead, Thor. _But he didn't say that. Thor was so convinced it would work, so hopeful that in the end he could bring Loki back to the tower and everything would return to normal. It wasn't that Loki didn't have the heart to tell him—because he certainly did have the heart and half a mind to do so—but he didn't have the energy. _Denial is such a tiring game._

"The Queen has picked her most trustworthy guard to watch over you, but there will be a… a condition wherein… for a certain period of time during the day, the Jotuns are free to come and… and do to you as they please." Shame painted the older Asgardian's face, and he looked down at his feet without another word.

"Well, it's not as if you can expect them to be satisfied with jail time." His voice was even, but he could feel the muscles in his throat turning to stone. It was hard to breathe, and his heart was hammering on the inside of his chest, adrenaline searing through any lethargy that may have been left from his hangover. "If that's everything, then I'll be headed back to my room, now. I still need to take a shower."

"Loki—"

He ignored the attempted protest and turned on his heel, disappearing through the doorway as fast as he could without running like a coward. Heavy footsteps sounded behind him, and he broke into a dead run, relying on his acute memory to lead him back the way he had come.

"Loki!" It was Steve.

_I need him to open the door. _Cursing his absent-mindedness, he slowed his gait until he had dropped down to a walk, keeping his hands clenched at his sides to maintain at least some semblance of control while still under the watchful eye of his enemies.

Steve fell in step beside Loki half a minute after he slowed, hands shoved into his pockets and lips pressed in a thin line. Loki ignored him. He didn't want pity. He didn't want them to know just how terrified he was.

"Here," Steve said, unlocking his door. "I guess… we're going to finish up some details, and then you'll be leaving with Thor."

Loki walked into the room and turned around, trying to close the door and being stopped by Steve's hands. _You can't do anything. It doesn't make a difference what you say to me, nothing about the situation will change. _Humans were such futile creatures.

"Loki, wait—"

"Leave," he hissed, pressing his full weight against the wooden door. Steve's hands retreated beneath the weight, and after listening carefully to the footfalls outside, Loki finally considered himself to be alone.

_…now what?_

He looked around at his books and calligraphy set, a rather elegant doodle sitting on the top of one of the pads of paper he used to practice on. His clothes were all folded and tucked away in their drawers, while his bed sheets were a contrasting, tangled mess left by his sudden departure.

_I can't take any of this with me. They'll take it away, I'll have nothing but the clothes on my back, if that. _He should dress warmly anyway. _I wonder if I could escape now. If I could break down the door or the window and somehow get away. _But he hadn't been planning on leaving so soon. _Maybe they'll let me keep a blanket… unless they expect my own breath to keep me warm in that barren wasteland._

Bare feet started to move across the room, stopping in front of his nightstand as his hands reached out to pick up the book he was in the middle of reading. _I shouldn't have gotten so comfortable. It wasn't as if I didn't expect this to happen. _Hands shaking, he placed the book back exactly as it had been, eyes burning as frustration washed over him.

He couldn't do anything. He was going to be imprisoned, and beaten, and humiliated, and degraded, and caged like an animal. He would be helpless, weak, injured, pathetic, fragile, and above all, trapped in this accursed human body that would hang his mortality in front of his eyes every second of every day. He was probably going to die, and he couldn't do a single thing to stop it.

Confused, Loki stared at his outstretched arm, wondering when he had moved it, feeling a surge of relief in his arm. It was as if some of his pent-up anger and frustration had exited through his fingertips, and one quick look at the floor on the other side of the room told him what it was.

Loki had chucked the book full-force into the opposite wall. And it felt _good._

Grasping the bedside lamp between his fingers, he sent it over to join the novel on the floor, followed by the clock and the half empty drink from the night before. He let the rage wash over him, completely surrendering himself to every destructive desire that entered his mind.

_I have no reason to hold back. What are they going to do? Ship me off an hour sooner? _

As far as he was concerned, there was no way to make his situation worse, and that meant there was no reason to deny himself this final display of independence—this final chance to do what he wanted without consequence.

So he grabbed book after book from the shelf, throwing them over his shoulder until there was nothing left to throw, at which point he turned to the small table and swept the contents onto the floor. He overturned the table, half tripping over it on his way to the dresser, hands grasping at the top drawer with a vengeance and tearing it out of its slot.

"Hck!" he grunted, finding that the drawer was on a locked track. No matter, he simply put more force into his pull until the entire thing toppled over, striking his knee on the way down, he pain buried beneath the adrenaline in his face.

Undeterred, he bolted across the room, grasping the full length mirror in his hands and swinging it into the wall, once again ignoring the pain that resulted from the mayhem. His head jerked around, eyes frantically searching for something else to grab, something—anything—to keep the flood of terror at bay.

_Window._

It was thick and—according to Tony—made of a substance that couldn't be broken with anything in the room. But Loki didn't care. If it was his hand that broke instead, that was fine, but _something _was going to break.

He launched himself at the window, pulling his fist back and swinging forward with every ounce of strength, every ounce of hatred, every ounce of desperation he had in him. He never hit the glass, one hand grasping his wrist and the other wrapped around his stomach, pinning the opposite arm to his side.

_I'll kill you._

Loki threw his head back, trying to hit his attacker in the chin or nose. He missed both, striking a shoulder instead, warm breathe brushing across his cheek as a familiar voice whispered in his ear.

"Loki, stop."

"I told you to leave." His voice didn't crack. He wasn't shaking in Steve's arms. His vision wasn't blurring with an onslaught of tears. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't feeling every last bit of energy drain from his body as terror filled the hole his wrath had left behind. He wasn't.

"You're bleeding." Steve, without entirely letting go of the god at any moment, moved his hands to Loki's shoulders and steered him towards the bathroom door. "Let me wrap that up for you."

Loki balked in the doorway, pushing back against Steve, and reaching behind his head to grasp the other's wrists. "Stop."

"Loki, you're—"

"Do you know how much I'll be bleeding over the next thirty days? This is nothing, Captain, nothing but a scratch in comparison!" Wrenching away, he turned to face his jailer fully, staring him down with a fist clenched at each side, ready to swing at a moment's notice. "It doesn't _matter_."

Steve didn't back down. "It does matter. We're not abandoning you, Loki, we—"

He didn't even try to stop the half-demented laughter that surged up his throat. "You're not? Tell me, Captain, what are _you _going to do to stop a race of bloodthirsty monsters living on a planet you have no idea how to reach from harming me?"

"Loki."

He gave the man no chance to speak further, silver tongue working its magic as he once again felt the angry fire burning away his fear. "I know what you're doing here. I know it just as well as I did when I first confronted you, and this only proves my point. You're going to send me away because it will help you maintain a good relationship with Asgard and because it will make Thor happy. That's all you care about, so stop it with this—this coddling business! It's _pathetic. _It's—"

"Loki, _enough._"

Silence filled the bathroom, the trickster's lips ceasing to move at the other's command. Steve hadn't yelled, per se, but he had spoken in a sharp, clear tone of authority. Survival instincts told Loki to listen.

"We—" Steve shook his head, starting over. "I am not going to abandon you, Loki. Thor can come every single day of your sentence, and that means he can allow me to communicate with the Queen of Jotunheim and arrange for me to see you as much as possible."

Loki scoffed. "You? On Jotunheim?"

"If they won't let me see you every day," the soldier continued as if Loki hadn't said a word, "then Thor will bring letters from me to you, and I will still visit every chance I get." After a pause, he added, "Dr. Banner feels the same way. As for Thor, I don't think I have to tell you that this isn't making him happy. Fury, Agent Hill, Clint, Natasha, and some of the other agents might just see this as political gain, but I don't, and I don't think Thor does, either."

Loki scowled but said nothing, biting down on the inside of his cheek.

"You have to stop and think, Loki. Odin is making a pact here, and he's negotiating to keep war against Asgard from breaking out. He's not fighting to keep the Jotuns off of Midgard. If we don't agree, and they don't like that, they could very well come and take you by force. I'd like to believe that we're strong enough to protect you, but I don't know that for sure. I can't promise we'd be prepared no matter what." He sighed, wetting his lips and continuing with a cautious tongue, watching Loki as though he expected the god to jump in at any time. "You could wind up on Jotunheim under much different circumstances, and we wouldn't be there to protect or support you. That's my point. I know this is going to be hard on you, but this is a really good situation in comparison to what it could be. It's only thirty days, trying to keep you overtime will start a war with Asgard they can't win, Thor is going to visit you every day, and Bruce and I are going to visit you as much as possible. We can bring you things, we can keep an eye on your health, we'll know if something they've done is putting your life in danger, we can bring medical equipment—you won't be alone, Loki, and I can't guarantee that will still be true if we hold off on this."

Loki clenched his jaw, staring at the floor and focusing on the task of keeping his breathing steady. He knew Steve was right. He knew that things could be much worse, and the chances of him surviving an arranged, thirty day transfer were much higher than him surviving capture. He knew that. He did. But it didn't make it any easier.

"Loki… it's going to be alright."

"How do you know?" he snapped, fingers digging into the cuts on his hands. "How do you know that it's going to be alright?"

Steve was silent.

"You don't know. They're going to torture me in unspeakable ways, and they're going to debase me in every way they know how." His heart started to pound from those words alone. "If and when I come back, I'll probably be missing various body parts and my mind will certainly not be in the state it is now. Even if you can, somehow, restore those things to me, how long will that take? Months? Years? Decades? Do you think S.H.I.E.L.D. will pay for that? Do you think Tony will? No. If I'm alive this time next week, I'll be shocked speechless."

Steve reached for his shoulder. "Loki, we won't let them kill you."

"You can do _nothing _to stop them!" he screamed, throwing the offered hand aside and striking the man's chest, forcing him to take a step back. "Don't you understand that? There is nothing any of us can do! It's _over, _Captain, it's over."

Shaking his head, the Man out of Time took a step closer, reclaiming the ground Loki had forced him to surrender. "It's not over. Talk to Thor, he didn't finish explaining the rules. If they're going to start a war because of late return, I can't imagine what they'd do if the Jotuns killed you. I know you're afraid, but—"

"I am not afraid!"

Steve didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Loki had all but admitted it, and as the fallen god heard his own words echo back at him, he started to break beneath the pressure. He felt sick, his head was spinning, his body was aching, and angry tears were burning the sides of his face.

Wrapping his arms around himself, he stared at the ground, swallowing hard.

"I'm terrified."

Fingernails dug into his upper arms, clawing at the skin mercilessly for the display of weakness, his face burning as he let his head fall against the doorframe. _I must sound like a child, afraid of the monsters under his bed. _

"There's nothing wrong with being afraid, Loki."

Blinking, the trickster lifted his head slightly, giving the man a frown.

"In fact," Steve smiled softly, "I'd be concerned if you _weren't _afraid. Don't let your stubborn pride stop you from asking for help. That's why we're _here, _Loki, that's why _you're _here. Let us help you."

Loki stared at him for a long time, searching his for any sign of malice or mockery, for any sign at all that this was a trap. He didn't see any, but he knew he wasn't in the best of mindsets at the moment, either.

"Captain…" he started, his voice trailing off as he failed to find the words to refuse.

"I won't take no for an answer. Neither will Bruce."

Sighing heavily, he dropped his arms back to his side and began to nod. "Alright… I'll let you help… I'll try this… this arrangement. I won't fuss. Not like I have much of a choice, anyway."

Steve smiled even wider. "I'm glad to hear it. Now, will you let me bandage your hands?"

Still disoriented, he offered a weak nod and wandered into the bathroom, seating himself on the toilet lid and waiting for Steve to do as he pleased.

_I have no choice. I don't have the energy to tell him no, and that means I won't feel like telling Thor no, either. Let them believe what they will, it changes nothing. In a matter of days, I'll be dead. I'll be…_

Loki's breath hitched when Steve poured some fizzing liquid over his hand, the burn ebbing away as the soldier blew gently over the open wounds. It wasn't Steve's fault. It wasn't Bruce's fault, either. It was Odin and Thor he should have been angry at.

_I never should have let my guard down._

* * *

Loki adjusted his shirt for what had to have been the millionth time, picking at his hands and shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he waited for Thor to say his final farewells. He was dressed in jeans, a wool sweater, and a jacket, all of which he knew would be removed upon his imprisonment.

"Hey."

He looked up from his hands, blinking in surprise when he saw Clint standing there. Of all the people who could have chosen to talk to him before he left, it had to be Clint, the one who would revel in his departure the most.

"Hello," he replied stiffly.

"Remember what I told you about sleep." Clint crossed his arms over his chest, staring him dead in the eye and continuing with a clipped professionalism to his voice. "Sleep is the difference between life and death in captivity. Sleep keeps your mind sharp, it allows your body to repair itself, and in the case of Jotunheim, it will help you conserve heat and energy. Even if you don't feel like it or don't think you can, try. Get as much sleep as you can."

Loki nodded slowly. "Sleep is important to human health and survival. I understand."

"One more thing," the archer said, glancing over his shoulder just as Thor started walking towards them. "Humans can survive for three minutes without oxygen, three hours in extreme weather without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food. That is your most basic, but also most crucial, survival information. Remember, Thor is coming every day. If you think you're in a position where you might wind up dead, that information can keep you alive until Thor gets there and gets you help."

Once again nodding slowly, Loki questioned the man, eyes narrowing slightly. "I appreciate the insight, but what possessed you to tell me this?"

"Orders."

"I highly doubt Director Fury told you to say that to me."

"Orders didn't come from him." Shrugging his shoulders, he turned towards the tower and started to walk back inside.

Loki's brow creased in confusion, but his thoughts were quickly derailed by a large hand on his shoulder. He glanced up and nodded his head before Thor could even ask, taking a deep breath as inconspicuously as possible and turning to face the older male.

"Heimdall, we are ready." Thor spoke to the sky, but he watched Loki the whole time, his eyes full of concern and grief.

Light shot down from the sky, colors surging around them as they were wrapped up in the energy of the Bifrost. There was a muffled noise from the right, and Loki turned towards it, but all he could see was an unidentifiable blur, and the next moment, his feet were off the ground.

_I can survive for three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Sleep is crucial to my survival. It's only thirty days. Thor will come every day, and Steve will write to me. I can survive for three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter, three days…_

His body jarred when he hit the ground, knees giving out beneath him as the Bifrost slammed him mercilessly into the ice. Thor was at his side in an instant, the ever-doting puppy that he was, but Loki waved him away and got back onto his feet.

"Let's not waste any time. I would like to get settled in as soon as possible." Loki almost laughed at his own words. Settled in, he said, as if he were here as a guest or here on business.

Thor nodded and took the lead, Mjolnir clutched tightly in his hand. "Queen Leiknyrr!" He looked around, glancing at Loki briefly before calling out again. "Queen Leiknyrr, can you hear me?"

"Honestly, Thor, you sound like a petulant child. Just find the palace and try to find a guard or—" Loki was cut off by the ground bucking beneath them, forcing the younger god to his knees while Thor only stumbled.

_Humans are like glass, _he thought, scrambling back to his feet and dusting himself off cautiously, his eyes riveted to the fairly large group of frost giants that appeared through the cracks in the ice.

One of the largest ones stepped forward, arms folded over his chest, blood red eyes peering down at Thor with visible distrust. Thor stared right back, but his grip on his hammer slackened slightly.

"I am here with Loki. Where is Queen Leiknyrr?"

The Jotunn shook his head. "She will only meet with you if you are alone. You can come with us to Loki's cell, and when you are ready to leave, you will be directed to the throne room, where you will speak with her."

Thor nodded his head. "Understood."

Loki stepped forward, leaning towards Thor and lowering his voice. "There is no point in coming with me. You should hand me over now and walk away." He remember the last time he had been on Jotunheim, how he had leaned forward just as he was now and tried to calm his then brother down. He had been telling Thor to walk away that time, and he hadn't listened. Loki prayed he would listen this time.

"But, Loki—" Thor turned to him, confusion on his face. "You do not wish for me to accompany you?" Judging from the careful hesitation in his voice, Thor had been told of the incident in the bedroom.

Loki nodded once, casting his gaze up towards the giant. "Would it be alright if I were to accompany you while Thor made his way to the throne room by himself?"

The man took a moment to consider the proposition and then nodded. "That would be fine. Liotr, show Odinson where the palace is."

The giant closest to the leader stepped forward, gesturing for Thor to follow him and then walking in the direction of what Loki assumed must have been the palace. Thor took a few steps and then turned back again.

"Loki… are you _sure _you do not want me to accompany you?"

Loki waved him off. "Have a little professionalism, Thor." His heart was racing again, thumping against the inside of his chest, his body running hot as fear began to take him over again. "Go on, go on. Shoo."

Thor gave him a weak smile. "I will come see you tomorrow." Then he turned and flew towards the Jotun called Liotr, making up for lost territory and landing on the giant's left side.

Loki wet his lips—and instantly regretted it when he felt the saliva turn to frost—and then he looked at the large giant who had spoken to them first. He opened his mouth, a witty retort dancing on his tongue, but then he closed it and waited for the giants to speak or move first.

_"I won't kill you because it would go against my orders, but if you tick off some stranger in a bar or on the streets, you could wind up dead or worse." _Clint's warning echoed in his mind, keeping his lips pressed together until further notice.

"Loki Odinson—" the prisoner bristled at the name, "—from this point onward, you are under the custody of the authority of Jotunheim. Do you understand this?"

Loki nodded his head. "Yes."

The Jotun reached out and grasped him by the upper arm, pulling him closer and then steering him in the direction of what Loki figured was the prison. With a slight push, Loki was walking on his own, two guards on either side of him and three behind.

_Thirty days… I can make it, it's only thirty days. I just have to be very, very careful. _He reached up towards his throat, unable to get the feeling of Clint's hands off of his skin. From the moment Steve had calmed him down to the moment he was in right now, all he could think of was his mortality. Of how it felt to be inches away from death. Of how vulnerable he was.

"Hands down."

Hesitating just long enough to feel defiant, Loki dropped his arm back down to his side, keeping both hands unclenched and easily visible. He banished all thoughts about his physical situation and started taking in his environmental one, instead.

There was an abundance of ice and snow, but he supposed that went without saying. Even the stone structures seemed to blend right into the frozen landscape, and since it was just as hard and cold as everything else, it also struck him as unsurprising. However, as they drew closer to a large mountain, Loki began to see signs of life scattered through the holes and crevices.

"Didn't expect to see fire here, little prince?"

Loki wet his lips and spoke evenly, curling his fingers out of habit. "No, I did not. Although, I suppose I shouldn't have assumed…" He tried to make himself stop, but his tongue was already moving, and his unfamiliarity with the area was eating away at him. "How do you keep them burning? I do not see any trees…"

One of the guards on his right scoffed. "Magic, of course."

Green eyes lit up at the word. _Magic. Perhaps that will be the… silver outline… to my situation. _He wasn't entirely sure he was remembering it right, but he knew that it had something to do with the way dark clouds looked when the sun was behind them.

In minutes, the small convoy had reached a massive, wrought-iron gate covering the mouth of what appeared to be a manmade cave. As they got closer, Loki realized it was open just enough for them to get through, and he had the feeling they had arrived at their general destination.

_Well, it wasn't as if I was expecting the luxury I received on either Asgard or Midgard. Still… it's so cold and dark… don't humans get sick in conditions like this? _He remembered what Clint said. _Three hours in extreme weather with no shelter… I can't turn three hours into thirty days no matter how I look at things._

Loki jumped slightly when the gate slammed shut behind them, his heart rate slowly increasing the further into the darkness they went. There was no going back now. No last minute escape, no chance to cheat death, no changing his mind.

"Don't get the wrong idea." It was the Jotun who had called him a little prince. "You want those to be closed. Because when they're open, you're free game for the civilians."

Loki bit down on the inside of his cheek and said nothing, nodding his head ever-so-slightly. He couldn't force a respectful reply from his lips, and he knew that a punishment for silence was bound to be more lenient than a punishment for disrespect.

"Kjaran, Allvaldi, bring the prisoner and come with me. The rest of you, return to your usual stations." It was the leader, the one who had first approached the Asgardians, who spoke up now, moving past Loki and marching on ahead as the remaining six guards seemed to scatter.

"Come on, little prince." Kjaran—or at least, he was the one who had responded to the sound of that name—took Loki's right arm in his hand and started to pull him along.

Scowling, the god bit out a quiet, "I can walk myself, thank you."

Kjaran grinned down at him, showing his teeth. "Yes, and I can rip out your throat with my bare hands, thank you." With that, he tightened his grip and pulled him along even faster.

"ทำไมคุณต้องกระตุ้นเขา?" This was the other one, presumably Allvaldi, who spoke with a tone of disdain, shaking his head at his comrade.

Kjaran only snapped in return. "เงียบ!"

Loki looked between the two men, trying to use what little he knew of the Jotun tongue to piece together what they were saying. It wasn't a friendly conversation, but the aggressive nouns weren't directed at him, so he was probably safe.

Probably.

Kjaran grabbed the handle of one of the many, many doors lining the cave walls and jerked it open, shoving Loki inside while Allvaldi let out another sigh. Loki caught himself, if only just barely, and quickly surveyed the room. It was completely empty save for a single, small table and the leader from before.

"Take your clothes off and give me your arm."

Loki didn't react immediately, giving the other a cautiously look before slowly pulling the dark blue sweater up and over his head. Sharp, biting air cut into him the moment his flesh was exposed, but he refused to flinch away and simply finished pulling off the article before dropping it to the floor.

_They didn't give me any specific instructions, and if they want to pick up after me, that's their problem. _He kicked off his sneakers without bending over or untying them—something he heard learned from Steve and found to be a rather neat little trick—and then stripped off his jeans and boxers, examining himself for a moment before determining that he was, in fact, naked and extending his hand towards the unnamed leader.

The Jotun took the arm in hand and waited until the skin turned blue before running his fingers over the dark blue, risen lines along Loki's skin. "You were taken when you were an infant, correct?"

Loki shifted his weight, feeling his insides squirm. "Yes, as far as I know." He hated the way that sounded. He didn't even know when he had been taken, where he had been taken from exactly, or even how old he actually was.

Frowning, the giant ran his hands over the lines again, twisting Loki's arm this way and that as he examined the stripes. "You probably don't know this, but those are large veins that run through the surface of the skin. It allows more blood to circulate through the body more quickly, and it's one of the many things that keep us alive in this environment. However," he dropped Loki's arm, placing his hands on his hips and staring the smaller man down, "yours never had a chance to develop because you grew up in warm weather."

Despite himself, Loki looked down at the limb and watched as the blue faded away, lips pursing as curiosity began to stew beneath the surface. He had always assumed the markings were some kind of decoration, or perhaps a strange tattoo that defined what tribe or clan or family the giant in question was from. The real explanation was… surprisingly educated.

"I see…" he mumbled to no one in particular, running his hand over his smooth, tan arm as his lips parted in an unexpected yawn. _Even though I'm a Jotun, I don't have what they have to keep them alive. That can't mean anything good for me, and if I can only survive extreme weather for three hourse…_

"Can I have my clothes, then?"

All three Jotuns looked at him, confused.

"You said my body is underdeveloped for this weather. It is my understanding that humans die within three hours of being exposed to extreme weather, and I assumed you would want me alive for a little while longer than that." Then, after a moment of thought, he smoothed out the ending. "It was only a question."

Allvaldi nudged Kjaran on the arm. "กระโปรงจะไม่เพียงพอ."

"สิ่งที่คุณต้องการให้ผมทำเกี่ยวกับที่?" he snapped back.

Loki rubbed his upper arms, already feeling the negative effects of the frigid, damp air. Some of it he expected, like the actual sensation of cold and the tingling sort of burn in his limbs, but some of it he didn't. For example, he didn't expect to feel so sleepy or lethargic.

"Stay with us, little prince."

His head jerked in response, another yawn stretching his mouth despite the fact that he was neither bored nor sleep deprived. It felt as if the cold itself were reaching inside of him, draining every ounce of energy he had left from this long, stressful, exhausting day. It was worse than the sweltering heat of the Midgardian summer. Much, much worse.

"ควรจะมีผ้าห่มในเซลล์ของเขา แต่บางทีเราควรจะให้ไฟไหม้อีกด้วย."

"ไม่ราชินีพูดอะไรเกี่ยวกับเรื่องนี้?"

"Kjaran, รับเขาเสื้อ. Allvaldi, รับเขารูที่จะทำให้เขาอบอุ่น."

"ใช่!"

Both of the guards vanished from the room, and Loki used the subsequent silence to try and piece together the conversation he had just witnessed. The Jotun who was in charge but still hadn't introduced himself had addressed both of the guards by name, probably giving them specific tasks which they readily accepted. There were a few words he recognized, one of which involved runes, but he couldn't get much of an understanding past the fact that they were discussing his underdeveloped vein problem.

Once it was just the two of them, the leader tossed a garment at him. "Here, put this on."

Loki caught it, noting that the feeling in his fingers was severely muted, and examined it for a moment. It was the same garment almost every Jotun wore, although he had never seen one this close. It was surprisingly well made, for a loincloth, and appeared to work the same way a belt would.

_Well-made or not, I'm still going to freeze in this._

He silently thanked his Asgardian upbringing when he stepped out of the room behind his Jotun guide, very well aware that most of the Midgardians, Vanir, and Light Elves he had met in his lifetime would have been severely embarrassed by such exposure. Not that he enjoyed or preferred being practically naked, he was simply grateful that, of all the humiliations he would suffer in the near future, shameful nudity would not be one of them.

_Two silver outlines so far, which is two more than I expected. I can't let my guard down, though, not under these conditions. _He glanced around, peering into some of the cells as they passed and wondering whether the prisoner inside was dead or just sleeping. _I should try and pick up some more of the Jotun tongue, as well. I'll have a better understanding of my surroundings, then, and I'll be able to tell Thor if anything is being plotted against Asgard, Midgard, or myself. _If he could find such a plot and then have Thor prove it, he had a very good chance of getting released earlier than expected.

"Raghnall," the leader called out, dragging Loki along behind him as he approached a small cell at the end of the hall. "Raghnall, are you down here?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

Loki's gaze snapped to the left and then the right, but he saw no one. It looked like an empty hall, and his mind immediately closed around the reason. _Illusion. Whoever is going to guard my cell can use magic._

"Raghnall, I don't have time for this. Show yourself!"

Loki peered at the empty hall more carefully, watching for the slightest inconsistency in patterns and colors, the faintest flicker in what should have been a solid object. _There. _He extended his hand, pointing to a brick that changed half a shade halfway through. "He's right there."

Immediately, the illusion fell, and the guard it revealed gave him a broad smile. "You're smart. I like that." He took a step forward just as Loki was shoved in his direction, a hand that could easily span the young god's face closing around his shoulder like a vice. "I have him, so get out of here and quit whining at me."

"Kjaran and Allvaldi will be bringing him some things in a little while."

Loki heard no response and didn't get a chance to look back, his body lurching forward as Raghnall all but carried him into the cell and pushed him down onto the stone slab in the far left corner.

"So, you're Loki, huh?"

"No, I'm Thor."

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, the sarcastic quip vocalizing on its own accord and turning every muscle in the trickster's body harder than the rock he was sitting on. To his relief, Raghnall only laughed.

"You keep getting better and better. This is going to be a fun job."

Loki didn't comment, swallowing thickly and looking up at the man with questioning eyes. "You… are to stay here the entire time, then?"

Raghnall gave a sharp nod. "Queen's orders."

Nodding, he looked back down at his lap and rubbed at the bumps on his arms, losing his voice to yet another yawn as the cold set deeper into his body. "You seem very... amiable."

The giant chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the bars to Loki's cell. "No reason not to be." He paused, his smile fading and being replaced by the same look Steve had worn earlier that day. "I can't say the same of the rest of Jotunheim, though. Don't be talkin' back to everyone like you did to me just now, or you'll be in a heap of trouble."

Loki nodded, curling in a little tighter on himself as the last bit of feeling left his toes. "I understand that." He tried to open his mouth, intending to ask the man about his magic, but the words died on his lips. Both eyelids started to fall lower and lower, his breathing slowing down considerably.

_"Sleep is the difference between life and death … in the case of Jotunheim, it will help you conserve heat and energy."_

Clint's words came back to him yet again, and he clung to the skeleton of a plan that it provided, moving a little bit closer to the corner and resting his head on his knees. "If it's alright with you…" he mumbled, unsure if Raghnall could even hear him, "…I'm going to try and get some sleep."

"That's a good idea."

Loki didn't respond after that, taking the words as permission and trying to carefully let go of every stressful thought he had on his mind. His muscles started to relax, and he tried to think of repetitive things that would put him to sleep. Calligraphy techniques, useful information he had gleaned about the Avengers, the rules of chess, and various other lists started to roll through his consciousness.

Warbled voices sounded in the distance, and he inhaled sharply when a hand touched his shoulder, his body recoiling instinctively though he still felt as though he were fast asleep. The touch was gentle, and in a matter of seconds, he was being enveloped in a thick, warm blanket and eased onto his side.

_Mmm… must be… Kjaran… and… Allvaldi…_

His facial muscles twitched slightly when he felt what he could have sworn was a kiss fall gently on his temple, and with his next inhale, he realized his mistake. It wasn't a blanket, it was a cape, and the smell was very familiar.

_Thor…_

"Every day, Loki."

_Every… day… _

Blackness swarmed his mind, the world dropping out from beneath him as he was thrust into the realms of sleep, his body still shivering to keep itself warm as the cape quickly cooled from the sheer volume of ice and snow and frozen rock.

Loki was officially a prisoner of Jotunheim.


	11. Chapter 11

Trigger Warnings: Blood, Abuse, and Mild Torture. Mild Torture is not Gore, Horror, Guts, Bones, Dismemberment, etc.

* * *

Loki dragged the back of his hand over his mouth in an attempt to clear the blood away from his busted lip, silently cursing his quickly fading patience. His punishment thus far had been surprisingly mild, and besides a few bruises on his stomach and the blood on his nose and mouth, he was doing very well for his first day.

Of course, that may have been because his visitors had been limited to professional guards and he had yet to encounter an angry civilian.

"Pleasant fellow, isn't he?" Loki watched Raghnall while moving towards his untouched breakfast, green eyes flickering between the man just outside the bars and the long hall that lead to freedom.

"Most of them are," was the simple reply. "It just so happens that the majority of them hate your guts." Raghnall's words were followed by a quiet chuckle, his hands maneuvering a piece of wood and a knife as he whittled the hours away.

"Rest assured, the feeling is mutual." Loki eyed his supposed meal for a little while and then set it aside. _I think I have a better chance of survival if I don't try and eat this… whatever this is. _Rubbing his arms through the thin but long-sleeved top they had provided, he eyed the hallway again, relishing every minute that passed without a visitor.

_They'll come, though. Jotuns are nothing short of savages, and stranding me here without any defense will be entirely too tempting for them. They'll have no reason to hold back, and I certainly won't try and give them one. I don't regret what I've done here. Quite the opposite, I regret failing to wipe this miserable rock from even the furthest branches of Yggdrasil._

During his time on Midgard, Loki had found that humankind had at least a few redeeming qualities. With their technology, they could make powerful weapons and warriors, as if the contraptions themselves weren't fascinating enough. Humans could cure many illnesses that Asgardians weren't even familiar with, and they had managed to endure being surrounded by eight realms of very powerful, superhuman beings. They were still beneath him, but they were _useful_. He could do _something_ with humanity by enslaving it rather than destroying it.

Jotunheim had no such qualities.

_Even Odin would have to admit that the threat of a long, arduous war is the only thing that's kept him from destroying them this long. There's nothing here. Not even the planet has resources that we could use to our benefit. If the Bifrost had remained open for just a little while longer…_

His thoughts were interrupted by echoing shouts and footsteps coming down the corridor, childish voices bouncing from wall to wall as five small Jotuns rounded the corner, bare feet slapping against the stone floor.

"ฉันเห็นมัน!"

"ให้เราไปน้องชาย!"

"ไม่ไม่ฉันกลัว!"

Loki couldn't make out any of their speech, although he could definitely hear a tone of fear in the last voice, but it was easy enough to figure out why they were there. _They've probably never seen a person before. No doubt their parents were discussing the trade with Asgard, and the frostlings overheard it._

Loki watched as the boy in front of the pack jumped up and latched onto the bars, dropping his feet on the only horizontal beam in the structure.

"Hey!" the boy shouted, but Loki ignored him. He was focused on the leather strap that wound around the child's arm and the significance it held. None of the other children were decorated as far as he could tell.

"Hey!" the boy shouted again, anger breeching his tone. "Are you _really _Loki of Asgard?"

"Of _course _I am." He drawled with as much sarcasm as his shivering vocal chords could muster, giving the frostling a disparaging look. "Who _else_ would I be?"

It was as if Loki had said the magic words, and the boy immediately launched himself back onto the floor, grasping the cell door in his hand and wrenching it open. Evidently, this particular frostling had some sort of a grudge against him, and Loki barely had time to get his arm up before the boy's fist made a sharp, solid connection with his cheek.

"Don't say it like you're all impressed with yourself!" the boy snapped, glaring angrily at him, trembling fists at his sides. "You're a monster! You shouldn't be proud of that!"

Loki ignored the faint stinging on his face—the little rat was too small to do any real damage, after all—and opened his mouth with a sharp retort dancing on his tongue.

"Brother, stop!"

Two little arms wrapped around the frostling's midsection, and Loki allowed his gaze to fall from the taller boy's face to the child cowering behind him. _Brothers. How incredibly ironic._

"Stop it. Mom and Dad wouldn't want you to hit him." He blinked, bloodred eyes glassy with unshed tears. "It's not nice, Bjolan, please don't."

Bjolan—who Loki was officially coining as the leader of the little band of monsters—looked between his enemy and his little brother, brow creasing as he found himself stuck between two situations he quite obviously disliked.

Finally, after a minute or two of contemplative silence, Bjolan pulled his arm back and swung again. Loki responded in the same way he had the first time, raising his arm at the appropriate angle to deflect the blow, but it never came. Confused, he arched an eyebrow at the boy standing just a foot away, smirking at him.

"Made you flinch."

Loki reached out to push him, snorting when Bjolan jumped away. "Made _you _flinch."

"I made you flinch first," the boy shot back.

"I made you flinch harder."

"I made you flinch twice."

The bickering children were cut off by Raghnall's boisterous laughter, and with the previous tension dissipated, the other children began to venture further into the cell. Four boys and one girl for a total of five little frostlings with dark blue skin and bloodred eyes.

_Disgusting._

The female immediately walked up to him, leaning in close and cocking her head to one side. "Your eyes are pretty." She reached out as if to touch one, and he quickly slapped her hand away, glaring until she took a few steps back.

Unfortunately, the others were not deterred.

"Why are they so many colors?"

"Why don't you have any braids in your hair?"

"Ooh! Ooh, I wanna try something!"

It was difficult to keep up with the scattered voices and hyperactive movements, but it was probably safe to assume that the child who had just grabbed his face was the one who wanted to experiment with Loki's otherworldliness.

"How did you do that?"

"Why are you white _and _blue?"

"You look much better this way."

"Aki, that's rude!"

Loki removed the small hands from his face and pushed the child back a few steps, releasing him with enough force to knock him on his bottom. "I am white and blue because I was born here but raised in Asgard, and I quite like being white, thank you."

"But how do you change?" Aki, who was apparently not bothered by being pushed away, bounced a bit closer and looked up at Loki with wide, curious eyes.

Slowly massaging his forehead, he considered the group at hand and started to develop an interactive explanation he hoped they would understand. "If I took away your ice powers and your magic, would you still be blue?"

They all nodded.

"Would you still be able to live here on Jotunheim?"

More nods travelled through the small group.

"It's like that. I am from Jotunheim—" the words made him cringe, "—and even though my appearance has been… altered… it does not change my race."

Aki bounced again. "But how do you _change?"_

"I suppose there is something in your skin that forces my body to change. Perhaps it's the temperature or your skin, or perhaps it's because we're the same race." He didn't really know for sure, but he hoped that would be enough to satisfy them.

"So… you're not _really _Asgardian?" Still hiding behind Bjolan—who had been watching Loki in hateful silence for several minutes—the littlest Jotun of the group begged the timid question.

"No, I'm not."

With those words, relief became tangible among the children.

"Oh, good!" The little brother smiled widely, coming out from his hiding place.

"That's a lot less scary," another one agreed.

Loki arched an eyebrow, securing his blankets a bit more tightly around his legs. "Is that so?"

"Yeah!"

"Asgardians are really scary!"

The female spoke up now, sitting a few feet away and peering up at him. "That's why you can't stay out after dark, you know. Once the sun goes down, the Asgardians come out, and they like to eat Jotuniri that wander too far from home."

"Jotuniri?" Loki questioned, turning to look at her.

She fell silent in response, staring down at her feet, and Bjolan took over the explanation from there. "Us, of course. Jotun kids." He crossed his arms over his chest, wrinkling his nose. "But it's not true. Grown-ups just say that to make little kids stay inside at night."

"No, no," the little brother yelled, shaking his head violently. "It's real! Why do you think the whole world almost got cut in half?"

Loki looked between the bickering children, half caught on the idea of Jotunheim being sliced in two and half caught on the idea of frostlings viewing Asgardians in the same light Asgardian children viewed the Jotuns in.

"That was _him, _Klaufi, and he just said he's one of us." Bjolan pointed an accusing finger, and Loki shoved it away, mild irritation showing on his features.

Klaufi frowned up at the dethroned god in bewilderment. "No, he didn't do that, the Bifrost did. Because of Asgardians!"

Loki watched the older brother roll his eyes, interrupting the argument before it could begin. "I am from Asgard, remember? Born here, raised there. So, yes, I am the one who tried to cut the planet in half."

Klaufi blinked slowly, shifting his gaze from his brother to the god sitting just a few feet away. His expression melted into a combination of fear and hurt, his arms coming up towards his chest as if to shield himself. "Y… you killed Mom and Dad?"

Loki's jaw tightened, and he gave a quick, sharp nod, caught off guard by the sudden but accurate accusation. _I suppose that explains the older one's anger toward me._

Klaufi sniffed, his eyes glassy. "Wh… why?"

"It's complicated." He certainly wasn't going to explain himself, because no explanation would satisfy, but he didn't know how he was going to change the subject otherwise. "When you're older, maybe you'll understand."

Bjolan snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's something else grown-ups say just to make little kids do what they want." He rolled his eyes. "They hate us, Klaufi, like we hate them. That's just how it is."

"It's not that simple," Loki snapped, turning a sharp gaze towards the oldest frostling in the group. "There's more to it than that."

Bjolan didn't back down. In fact, he took a step forward, meeting the god's eyes without fear or hesitation. "Like it matters. Whatever it was, you didn't' have to kill Mom and Dad and everybody else."

"Please… don't fight…" the female, who had been quiet for some time, whispered from where she sat by the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. "Fighting doesn't make anyone happy. Fighting is why we're all here right now."

Loki glanced at her, leaning back against the wall and adjusting his blankets once more. "What about you? Did I kill your parents, too?"

She shook her head, black braids and strands of colored beads cascading over her small, body shoulders. "No. Just my house." Digging her toes into the dirt, she kept her eyes down, tugging on her hair with trembling fingers. "Just my house," she repeated.

There was silence in the cell for some time after that, and Loki looked at the two children who had watched the entire exchange in silence. "You as well?"

Aki shook his head. "No… we're just friends. Lini and her family are living with us, so we thought we could all come together." He shrugged his shoulders, moving closer to the last Jotun, who seemed to be very fond of him.

"I see." Loki scanned their faces again, tilting his head upward slightly. "Well, did you get what you came for?"

Looks were exchanged among the children, and finally, Bjolan spoke up. "I brought them because they wanted to see an Asgardian up close." He paused, eying the trickster for a moment or two and then continuing. "Lini and I were the only ones who knew you attacked us. The kids just wanted to see you."

Loki crossed his arms over his chest. "Then, if I am not mistaken, your task here is done. Shouldn't you be headed home now?" He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, the recently added information not ingrained enough to automatically filter his thoughts.

Lini bit down hard on her lip—so much so that the skin around her teeth turned to a very pale shade of blue—and buried her face in her knees, shoulders quivering.

"That wasn't what I meant." Sighing, Loki pinched the bridge of his nose, reaching out and placing a gentle hand on the frostling's back. "I meant that it should be time for you to return to your current place of residence. It was a mere slip of the tongue, so don't cry about it."

"You didn't have to do it!" she shouted, pulling on her hair with her face still buried against her knees. "Why do y-you hate us so much?"

Loki rubbed small circles on her back, trying to make her calm down as quickly as possible. He didn't need any more reasons for the Jotuns to be mad at him, and making a little girl cry was certainly another reason.

"I don't hate you." Time to put that lying tongue to good use. "I don't hate Jotunheim. I was threatened with a war I wasn't sure I could win, so I wanted to gain the upper hand. That's… that's simply how war is." He took her wrists and gently pulled them away from her head, afraid she would start pulling her hair out in clumps if he didn't. "I know it doesn't make it any easier, but it can't be helped."

Lini didn't stop crying, but her sobs did soften considerably, her small body curling in on itself and leaning against his side. _Let the irony continue. _With a soft smile, the god of mischief put his arm around her, trailing nimble fingers through her hair.

"I remember my first war." Lies, lies, lies. "I know it's difficult. I suppose with age, I've just gotten used to it. I forget how scary it can be." Manipulation. "I should have watched my words more closely. I must have hurt you."

Lini nodded, her cries fully halted now, and even Bjolan seemed to lose some of his anger at the words, his arms falling away from his chest to his sides. Klaufi, Aki, and the only child who had yet to be called by name all seemed to relax a little, the fear and sorrow fading from their faces.

"Now," Loki started, giving them all another smile. "I really do think you children should be headed back to your houses. This place isn't very nice, and the longer you stay, the higher the chance of something bad happening to you is."

Bjolan darted over to the door to the cell and waved the four kids over, ushering them out of the cell in obvious agreement with Loki's statement. None of them seemed to know what to say, and as they started to walk down the hall, it was only Bjolan who turned back to give him one final glare.

Loki met it with a mocking smile and wave.

"Loki Liesmith. It suits you." Still whittling away at that old, wooden stick, Raghnall sat just outside the gate the children had passed through. "I imagine a skill like that comes in real handy when you tick off a whole bunch of people all at once. Or at least, you better hope it does."

Loki sneered, reaching down to rub his frozen feet. "Please. I'm not going to explain my rationale to a bunch of ragamuffin frostlings."

"Jotuniri." Raghnall glanced over his shoulder, eyes sharp. "Call them Jotuniri."

"Why should I?" was the quick retort. "We've always called Jotun children frostlings."

Raghnall snorted, flipping the wood over in his hand and carving on the other side. "You call them frostlings because you and the rest of Asgard have always viewed our people as beasts, and that was the term you coined for our young because, to you, they were just the result of a wild mating season and inbred survival instincts. They're kids, and the proper term is Jotuniri." He blew on the structure in his hand and examined it in the thin shaft of light that peeked through the ceiling. "I won't hound you on a lot of things, but that's something I don't want to have to listen to for the next thirty days. Not sure Queen Leiknyrr wants to, either, and since I'll be reporting everything back to her, well… you might want to watch yourself."

Loki looked down at his hands. "I will keep that in mind." He didn't want to. There was not a single fiber in his being that cared what the Jotun thought of terms and pleasantries. There were, however, many fibers that did not want to face any more punishment than necessary, and while his silver tongue would get him out of some situations, there was no reason to push his luck.

* * *

Blood splattered against the floor of the cell, a bruised hand coming up to cradled the broken nose carefully. Oxygen came in fast, sporadic gasps, his sides aching with every inhale, his throat crying out as the air dragged along his flesh like razor wire.

"I don't think I heard you right, Odinson. Why don't you try again?"

Loki spat at the man's feet without thinking twice, his arms wrapped protectively around his stomach. "I don't owe you anything, frost giant."

Stars exploded across his vision, and he felt himself hit the floor, vaguely aware that the blow had come from his right side. Swallowing a groan, he struggled to sit up again, the three angry Jotuns coming in and out of focus.

"You don't seem to understand the situation you're in, Loki."

Loki glared at the only female in the group, eyes turning to stone. "I understand perfectly," he snarled, blood spraying from his curled lips, "but that doesn't mean I'm going to bend to your will so easily."

She shook her head, clucking her tongue in disapproval, and then she crouched down and drew a square on the floor with her index finger. Moving her hand to the center of the doodle, she slowly lifted it up, ice chips swirling from her fingertips until a solid block filled the space she had outlined.

Loki wet his lips, opening his mouth to speak but finding himself unable, a hot knife running up one lung and down the other. _What do they intend to do with that? _His eyes darted from one Jotun to the next, his composure defiant but obviously pained and exhausted. _Block of ice, block of ice—hit me with it?_

It was no use. He had been doing this all day, and his brain was completely fried. It was hard enough thinking of witty comebacks and intelligent speech that made him sound like he was still on top of things, let alone actually constructing an idea he could use.

"You're human now, aren't you, Loki?" the woman asked, dragging him from his thoughts and earning herself bitter silence with a scathing expression. "You are human, and if you are human, then you should know your place." She pointed to the patch in front of her. "Kneel."

Loki let out sharp bark of laughter, regretting it instantly for the agony that split his sides. Still, he kept his composure, shaking his head and chuckling softly. "I will not."

His head snapped to the side, eyes barely able to register the new scenery before he was dragged back by the chin and slapped again. He couldn't see who it was, but they struck him a third time, and then a fourth, and then a fifth. Each blow got harder and harder until the pressure forced his head back far enough that it smacked into the wall behind him, sending another flurry of lights across his range of vision.

"Kneel, Odinson."

"I am no son of Odin."

"Then kneel, Loki."

"I will not."

"Kneel."

Green eyes fluttered slowly, words of defiance dying on his lips when he saw the knife in one of the men's hands. He had been slapped and punched and kicked and thrown, but he hadn't lost much blood. He managed to keep himself in one piece, and hopefully, avoid any permanent damage.

"…I… I will not."

She only looked at him, silently mocking him, the quaver in his own voice telling him what she did not. He looked at her. He looked at the men. He looked at the ice. He couldn't. He just _couldn't. _Not to them, not to anyone, not ever.

"Are you really so prideful that you can't put your knees on a block of ice to save your own skin?" she questioned, her eyes narrowing in his direction. "Asgard kept Jotunheim on its knees for years, and we allowed it because we knew if we didn't, we would be destroyed. For someone who denies his place as Odin's son at every given opportunity, you certainly don't try to hide your Asgardian roots."

Loki had to congratulate the woman for her words, the subtle truths and interwoven lies stinging his ears and drawing a grimace on his features. "I may have an Asgardian's pride, but I am most famous for my witty tongue, which evidently comes from this part of my origin." It was a compliment coming from him, but it was the only thing he could think of that might delay or alter the end result.

"You cannot be both. Should you like to keep your tongue, I suggest you cast off what Asgard has carved into your veins."

No such luck.

Swallowing, Loki eyed the block and carefully moved closer, his cheeks burning red against his otherwise pale skin. _Survival. I have twenty-nine more days to endure, and if I keep it up, I won't make it. I have to focus on survival. _He chanted the words to himself over and over, keeping his eyes on the ice as he slowly maneuvered himself onto his hands and knees, biting down on the inside of his cheek. _I have to focus on survival. This is just for survival. It's a show, it's a mask, it's a lie, just like any other lie I've told. That's all it is. This is for survival. I have to focus on survival._

"Was that so hard?" She walked around him slowly.

He could practically _feel _her eyes wandering all over him.

Stopping in front of him, she pressed for an answer. "That was a question."

_This is for survival. This is for survival. _"No, it was not." He wet his lips, staring down at his fingers and watching the reddish tinge travel over his skin.

"You look cold."

Loki licked his lips again, the burn beneath his hands and kneecaps slowly fading into little pinpricks and electric shocks. _She won't let me off so easily. I can survive for three hours in extreme conditions with no shelter, according to Barton, but how long will my extremities last when directly exposed to solid ice?_

"If you want to get up, just ask. Politely and respectfully, of course."

He grit his teeth. She hadn't asked another question, so he didn't have to answer. He _wanted _to answer, but he didn't have to, so he wouldn't. It was the safest choice. He knew he wouldn't be able to control his tongue if he opened his mouth.

_They can't stand here all day, and it's getting more bearable with time. They'll have to get bored eventually. _He could barely feel the pain in his knees over the steady ache that had set into his palms and forearms. Despite himself, the limbs were quaking ever-so-slightly, fingers slowly turning numb as the minutes ticked by.

"Do you want to get up?"

Loki silently cursed her intuition. "Yes."

She hummed. "So, why don't you ask?"

"I will not ask a Jotun to give me permission to stand," he snarled, blood dripping from his nose and mouth onto the ice below. "Be glad I agreed to this much."

His shoulders were starting to hurt, the ache in his arms turning into a burn as his hands and feet grew colder and colder. Whether it was from the ice or the lack of circulation, he couldn't tell, but he imagined it was a little bit of both. He was shaking hard now, unable to stop his limbs from trembling under his own weight.

"I do not think this is a matter of being glad. It's more of an amusement, really. One of Asgard's renowned princes behaving like a stubborn child."

"I fail to see the comparison." Pain was now a constant, steadily increasing with every passing minute, feet and fingers entirely unfeeling.

She laughed. "You would." Crouching down, she took his chin in her hand and pulled his head up, blood red eyes twinkling mischievously. "It's very simple. When you try and put a toddler down for a nap, he'll resist you, even though he knows he's tired and knows he's going to lose in the end. In a similar manner, you're kneeling here and resisting when you know how this is going to end."

Jerking his head away, he tried to redistribute his weight, quickly finding that it only caused his muscles to hurt more. "You can't stand here forever."

"I can stand here longer than your body can," was her simple reply, laughter falling from her lips as she rose to her feet and started to circle him again. "It's not cold to me, and I'm free to sit or lie down if I so choose. You'll cave long before I would."

Loki kept his gaze on his hands. His joints were burning, his frozen fingers were completely numb, his muscles were begging for reprieve—but he just _couldn't. _

"Fulfilling the condition would actually be quite easy if you weren't so stubborn and proud. It doesn't hurt, it's not permanent, and it won't kill you." She was once again in front of him. "I can understand the resistance to kneeling on the ice. It's painful, and even with your Jotun heritage, it's very cold. But a few words of repentance? You have no reason. Nothing but pride."

Biting down hard on his lip, he focused on breathing only, trying to push the pain from his mind and find a thought he could latch onto. He just needed something to distract him from her words and the agony running rampant across his shoulders and down into his wrists.

_I have to survive, I know I have to survive, but even if she can outlast me physically, the jail closes tonight. She'll have to leave then, I can make it that long. I can make it. Just take a deep breath and focus on the end goal. I can make it, I can make it, I can make it…_

Tremors racked his body, lower legs numb from lack of blood flow, forearms falling to pieces beneath him even as he tried to convince himself that he had a chance.

"…may I get up?" It tasted like vinegar on his tongue.

"I think you forgot something."

Politeness. "May I get up… please?"

Beads jangled in her hair, a sure indication of her shaking her head. "That's better, but you're still not there."

He bit down hard on his lips, heart hammering against his chest, blood rushing to his face as he struggled to adapt a respectful tone. "May I please get up?" he asked, putting as much effort into it as he could.

"Yes, you may." There was hardly a beat between her words. "As soon as you apologize for your rude behavior, you may get up."

Growling under his breath, he raised his eyes to meet her gaze, fire shooting up and down his neck as he did. "You didn't say anything… about apologizing." He clenched his jaw, determined to keep his chattering teeth from affecting his speech.

"You're right, I didn't." She nodded, her arms crossed over her chest, shoulders squared like a warrior. "However, since you failed to comply the first two times you made an attempt, I have a hard time believing you learned your lesson."

"I did what you asked!" He snarled, overlapping her last three words. "So let me get up."

She shook her head, expression unchaging and painfully impassive.

Loki dropped his head, unable to take the pain in his neck any longer, shoulders spasming as he opened his mouth to try again. "I am… sorry… for my behavior. Satisfied?"

"You don't sound very sincere."

He almost cursed. "I didn't realize I had to be."

Her hand fell on the top of his head, tapping lightly. "Look at me when you say it. Full apology, full request, and a tone of sincerity. I know you can manage that, Loki Liesmith."

Swallowing, face flushed, and eyes stinging, Loki raised his head, staring her dead in the eyes and speaking with every ounce of sincerity he had in him. "I am…" He stopped, choking on the words before starting over. "I am sorry for my behavior." He inhaled shakily. "May I please get up?"

Lips twitching into the lightest of smiles, she nodded her head. "Yes, you may."

Loki moved as soon as she spoke, removing his hands and knees from the ice and seating himself on the stone flooring just a foot away. He clasped his hands together, holding them to his midsection and curling around them, pressing his forehead to his knees and trying to drown his shame in the pain he was feeling.

"You may leave us."

Loki didn't even look up, listening to the sounds of retreating footsteps until silence filled his cell once more. Sniffing quietly, he pulled his hands away from his stomach and stared in morbid fascination at the red, mottled skin before pulling them in close again.

"Give me those."

Reluctant, he pulled his hands out of what little warmth he still had, handing them over to the very woman who had put him in this state. She took them by the wrists and pulled them a little closer to herself. Then she reached into her cloak and pulled out a small, round stone with runes carved into it, pressing it into one of Loki's palms and then pressing both of his hands together.

"จุดชนวน!"

Loki jumped, the stone in his hands heating up all at once and sending a rush of warmth through his frozen palms and fingers. He clutched the rock tightly, pulling his hands closer to himself and mumbling a 'thank you,' if only to ensure that she didn't take it from him.

"You are welcome, Loki."

He raised his eyes briefly, lowering them when he felt embarrassment spreading across his features anew. He didn't understand why she was still here, or why she had told the other two giants to leave, but he was warm.

"It will start to burn soon."

"I know," he snapped. "I can feel it already." Loki curled more tightly around the precious stone, glaring at her in a silent threat. _Do not take this from me. _

There was a lull in the conversation, but after a moment, she spoke again. "You should consider yourself lucky. If you were truly human, with no genetic resistance to the cold whatsoever, your foolish pride would have given you frostbite."

Teeth chattering, he glared up at her. "Do I even want to know?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "It is something that affects humans when they are in the cold for extended periods of time. Fortunately for you, your skin is not related to your magic but your race. You will always have it to protect you, regardless of what Odin tries to take away."

"I would rather die from the cold than be cursed with this skin," he hissed.

She said nothing, standing up and watching him with passive eyes.

He ignored her to the best of his ability, hissing under his breath when the burning and tingling became painful. Despite the relief his new position offered, he could still feel the ache in his forearms and shoulders, and he imagined it would be quite a while before they felt normal again.

_Tch. They'll never feel normal. Not while I'm stuck in this wasteland of monsters with no way to defend myself._

Shivering, he reached back with one hand and grabbed Thor's cape, pulling it around his shoulders and retreating into the folds, the stone once against clutched between his hands. He couldn't tell if it had gotten colder, or if it was just the comparison between his hands and his surroundings that made it seem so.

Loki turned his head, glaring up at the woman who had yet to leave and stood silently, watching his every move as though he were a beast to be observed.

"Why are you still here?" he growled, another tremor surging through his body.

She arched an eyebrow at him, obviously displeased. "I would like to have a conversation with you, now that I have some idea of what to expect."

"Oh, goody. So that was just the beginning, hmm?"

The Jotun shook her head. "No. That was a test. This is the discussion."

"You have an interesting idea of a test." Loki glared. "I have no desire to talk to you."

"You also had no desire to kneel on the ice and beg for respite like a slave." She gave him no chance to respond, speaking over his attempted outburst with an authoritative calm. "I needed to see just how difficult you were going to be. I needed to know whether or not it was worth my time to come down here."

"Enough!" Loki snarled, eyes burning with hatred, fists clenched against his stomach. "Who are you that you think you have the right to play such games? What business have you deciding my worth and personal restraint? You are nothing but a beast, sentenced to a painfully long life spent crawling under rocks and cowering away from those who look down on you with scorn and hatred, just like every other blue-skinned, red-eyed _monster _that creeps alongside you on this desolate, frozen _wasteland!" _His shoulders heaved, breath coming in short, broken pants as he tried and failed multiple times to regain his composure.

"My, my, you do have quite the tongue on you." Sighing, the woman dropped her arms to her side and took a step forward. "Since you seem so intent on being run into the ground by those who are older and wiser than yourself, I'll satisfy you once more."

Horizontal lines of green light began above her head and started to work their way downward, repainting her body as layer after layer of illusions began to dissolve into the air. No longer dressed in a simple loincloth and tunic, she stood there, a long skirt falling from her waist with a slit running up each side and an intricate wrap covering her chest and neck. A cloak of jade and emerald caressed her shoulders, and her hair came to her thigh, stones and beads and metal clasps decorating various strands throughout. What Loki noticed the most, however, was sitting atop her head, staring at him almost as defiantly as she did.

Her crown.

"I am Queen Leiknyrr, twelfth daughter of Álmóðr and Mýrún, first wife of King Laufey, and perhaps most importantly…" she met his gaze evenly, silently daring him to speak his mind once more, "…I am your mother."


	12. Chapter 12

Loki blinked, scanning the queen's figure once more, taking in the details of her new appearance and committing them to memory. "You are my mother," he repeated her own words back to her, his expression one of disbelief. "You certainly have a funny idea of family reunions."

Leiknyrr's lips curled into a smirk, red eyes piercing his own gaze relentlessly. "Yes, well, I don't tend to enjoy the company of those who attempt to bring my people to an end." Walking across the cell, she seated herself in front of the dethroned prince, crossing her legs and resting her hands atop her knees.

Withdrawing further into the cape, he looked her over one more and, after a moment's hesitation, attempted to make conversation. "You wear a crown and robes. Laufey did not."

Snorting, the queen shook her head, light shining through the lone ruby on her crown and casting rainbows against the walls. "Laufey cared more for the physical role of being a king. He didn't like the meetings and the pleasantries and the attire."

Loki nodded sharply, turning his head to stare at the wall, hands shifting the runic stone from place to place in the hopes of spreading its warmth. _I have so many questions, and yet, I have an equal amount of reasons why I do not want to ask them. _Both eyes narrowed at the thought, his fingers curling around the edge of the cape once more. _I do not need answers. I am neither Asgardian nor Jotun. I refuse to be._

Something in the back of his mind told him that such a decision was not his to make—that his genetics and his past were things he could not alter, no matter how much he wanted to—but he didn't care. He wanted nothing to do with her, just as he wanted nothing to do with Laufey or Odin or—

—Frigga.

"What do you want?" he asked, turning to look at her once more. "I do not want you here, and you have made it quite clear that you do not want me. You have had your laughs, you have gotten your amusement, and you have told me who you are. What else needs to be done before you will leave me?"

"I didn't think you'd be so eager." She smiled, eyes going cold. "I already left you once, and we both know how you feel about that."

It was like a knife going into him, but he refused her any kind of response, his expression having no more life than the bricks beneath his feet. Then, slowly, his lips started to turn upwards, eyes sparking to life as his tongue started to aid him once again.

"I suppose you're right. I should enjoy your company a little while longer." He sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders with the same regal air his supposed mother had. "How do you fare in your negotiations with Asgard?"

"You're here, aren't you?" Her eyebrows rose sharply, the superior smile never quite leaving her lips. "We fare well. Then again, it was us who threatened to wage war, so take that for what you will."

Loki chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Odin certainly dislikes war. Unless, of course, it's on his own terms. Then it's another story entirely." His heart pounded on the inside of his chest, adrenaline coursing through his veins as the game began to escalate.

It was a battle of composure and wit. She wasn't relaxed and neither was he, but they were both doing a verbal dance, trying to push each other's buttons while simultaneously protecting their own. She brought up his past, he brought up the war, she smiled at him, and he laughed at her. So on and so forth it went.

_I must have gotten my silver tongue from her._

"Indeed. It's a tricky game to play, but it's certainly doable if one has the wit. I'm sure you already know this, but your father is—"

"He's not my father."

"—not exactly renowned for his wit. He's intelligent enough, and his experience certainly gives him an abundance of practical wisdom, but as far as his people skills are concerned, he is quite dull." Leiknyrr was undeterred by his interruption, and the words flowed freely from her mouth as though he hadn't said anything at all.

"You should tell him that's something he had in common with Laufey, just to ruffle his feathers." Loki paused, following himself with a quick and unnecessary explanation, each word falling with pointed precision. "At least, I assume that's how Laufey was, given how easy it was to lure him into Asgard and slaughter him."

"Laufey had an odd condition where he was painfully aware of the sorrow war brought to his people, but his temper and lust for power often overrode his responsibility as a king, which is exactly what lead us to this situation we're in." She paused, glancing at the ceiling and pursing her lips. "Hmm. I suppose that could be considered another trait they shared."

Loki arched both of his eyebrows. "You do not seem to have many kind words for your husband. What inspired you to marry him if you detest him so?" He liked where this was going. She didn't attack, and she left her back exposed to him, giving him the upper hand.

"Betrothal, of course." Leiknyrr lifted a hand, making a fleeting gesture towards the ceiling. "I don't know how you arrange things on Asgard, but here, all royal marriages are arranged by the preceding King and Queen. Due to my noble bloodline, access to education, and aptitude for weaponry and war tactics, I was chosen to rule this age."

Brow crinkling, he cocked his head to the side and leaned in. "You don't seem like the type to settle for such an arrangement. Why didn't you refuse?" He already had an idea, but he wanted a chance to subtly question her strength.

"I didn't much care." She shook her head. "I was his first wife, but as time went on, he obtained other women with which to occupy himself, and I was left to my own devices. By accepting my role and biding my time, I gained access to all of Jotunheim's wealth, knowledge, history, secret affairs, and so on and so forth." Smirking, she put the nail in the coffin. "Seeing as I am now the sole ruler of this realm, I would say things worked out rather well for me."

Loki didn't miss a beat. "Oh, but surely it must have been hard for you. Living your entire life in the background of something you desperately wanted, watching as he ran from woman to woman and knowing there was nothing special or unique about you—not in his eyes. Knowing that the only reason you finally got what you wanted was because someone died and not because you earned or deserved it." With every word spoken, his face grew a little darker until he no longer tried to hide the hatred, meeting her cold eyes without fear or remorse.

She smiled. "You would know something about that, wouldn't you, Loki? Except for the part where you didn't get what you wanted even though many people _did _die." Then she laughed, cold and bitter and cruel. "What does that make you, my dear boy?"

Blindsided.

Chest tightening, he stared her down, trying and failing to come up with a reply that was equally damaging. _She opened the door on purpose. She drew me into her territory—information about herself and her home—and then she stabbed me in the back. Clever. _Unfortunately, it was just as painful as it was impressive, and as the seconds continued to pass, he knew he would have to accept defeat.

Chuckling softly with a slight shake of his head, he smiled over at her. "You are a worthy opponent, Queen Leiknyrr. I quite enjoyed our game."

She smiled back, crystalline teeth shining against her dark blue skin, eyes sparkling with a winsome innocence that made him sick to his stomach. "As did I." Rising to her feet, she continued, reaching into the folds of her cloak and searching for something. "I think I shall visit you again, Loki. Perhaps, at that time, we can discuss your origins in depth."

Loki nodded. "Perhaps we can."

Leiknyrr withdrew a small, muted silver ring and leaned down, extending it towards him in silence. He leaned forward slightly, giving it a thorough examination and then looking up at her, suspicion heavy in his eyes.

"It is yours," she explained. "It marks you as an heir to the throne of Jotunheim and a member of the royal family." Reaching out, she took his right hand in hers and pulled it towards herself, sliding the band onto his ring finger. For a moment, it seemed to be too big, but then it adjusted to a perfect fit, hugging his finger as though it had always been there.

Leiknyrr laughed softly. "It knows you."

"It…?" Loki startled, watching as a deep sapphire began to spread over his fingers and hand. His head snapped up, teeth baring as rage burst in his chest, vision blurring from the rush of adrenaline. "Remove it!"

Leiknyrr straightened up, arching a brow at him and offering a wicked, self-satisfied smile. "Are you certain? That ring is a reminder to my people of who you are by birthright. It may cause them to think twice about what their treatment of you."

Looking down at the ring again, at the blue skin of his hands and arms and legs, he almost refused. Then he looked at the bruises on his stomach, his skinned knees, and his bloody sleeve. He hated it—he hated everything about it, and he hated her—but he was only on his first day and already feeling overwhelmed.

"Can I remove it?" he hissed, clenching a fist around the ring as if he thought he could somehow break it and pretend it was an accident.

"It will be difficult without magic. Rings for the royal family are enchanted, made in such a way that they cannot be lost in battle or disasters of any kind." She turned towards the door to the cell and started to walk away. "However, if you sit down and focus all of your thoughts and energy on the task of getting it off, the ring will listen to you."

Loki nodded jerkily, crossing his arms over his chest and falling back against the wall with a quiet thump. _You baffle me, Queen Leiknyrr. You come to beat and humiliate me, but when you leave, I have a rune to keep me warm and a ring to ward of some of those who would wish to do me harm. _He watched her exit and then carefully lock the door, knuckles turning white as he contemplated the questions he would ask when the time came. _Why did you leave me? If you do harbor care in your heart for my wellbeing, why did you leave me? _How _could you leave me?_

She moved down the corridor, emerald folds sweeping out behind her as she strode, that familiar regal countenance squaring her shoulders and keeping her chin up. Leiknyrr carried herself just like Loki did, and the realization sent another dose of anger into his bloodstream.

_Why did you leave me? If we're so similar, why wasn't I good enough? _Looking down at the stone grasped in his hand, his lips started to part, pulse pounding against his ears. _You are my mother, you weren't supposed to leave. If my birthright really is to be a prince of Jotunheim, how could you cast me out? How could you—_

Loki raised his head, inhaling with the intent to speak but falling silent when he realized the hall was empty. Sighing softly, he cupped his hands and stared at the stone and ring he now possessed. How bittersweet a reminder of what he did and did not want to be. Both objects were tied to magic, which was a part of himself he desperately wanted to regain, but the ring on his finger was directly tied to his heritage, which was a part of himself he desperately wanted to destroy.

"Don't look so glum. Blue suits you much better than white."

Loki cast the guard a brief, half-hearted glare.

Raghnall laughed in response, leaning against the door and bracing both arms against the bars. "You get so bent out of shape about Jotuns. Why is that?"

"You're _monsters_." Clenching his fists again, he curled in on himself and clutched the cape that had offered so much comfort over the past twenty-four hours. "If I had my way, you'd all be dead."

Raghnall only grinned wider. "I think we already established that, but… I'm confused about something." He tapped his chin, glancing up at the ceiling. "If Jotuns are monsters, and you're a Jotun, doesn't that make you a monster, too?"

Loki glared at him wordlessly.

"Huh." Raghnall let himself into the cell and shut the door, walking across the floor and sitting down next to the young prince with a soft grunt. "Is that the problem, then?"

"Is _what _the problem?"

"You were raised as a hero, only to find out that you were really a monster." Raghnall held up his hands a foot or so away from each other. "You thought you were here, but you were actually here, and you think that if you get rid of this—" he dropped one of his hands, "—then you'll have to be grafted back into this." He wiggled the fingers of his remaining hand, reaching out to poke the younger Jotun when he didn't respond.

Loki growled, looking up at Raghnall with tired but angry eyes. Raghnall returned the stare with a hint of a smile still lingering on his lips. After a few moments of silence, Loki let out a sigh of defeat and leaned his head back against the wall.

"Yes… something like that. Everyone on Asgard thinks ill of Jotuns. When Thor and I were young, he often talked about his future plans to get rid of every last one of them—or you, I suppose. I wanted to do the very same, if only because I thought it might finally give me some leverage with which I could escape Thor's shadow." Loki shook his head, laughing bitterly and closing his eyes. "Odin couldn't be bothered to interfere, even though he certainly knew if I ever learned the truth, such beliefs would be damaging."

Raghnall looked into the god's eyes, waiting to see if he was done speaking before offering some words of his own. "When you were young, you formed your beliefs based on what you were exposed to and what you were told was true. But you're not a child anymore, Loki. I think it's about time you started figuring out what is and isn't true on your own." He smiled softly. "And you're certainly in a good position to do it."

Loki dropped his gaze and then brought it up again, trying not to think about the fact that his eyes mirrored those of the man in front of him. He swallowed, opening his mouth to speak and closing it shortly thereafter.

After a while, Raghnall clapped him on the shoulder and stood up, walking away and leaving Loki to his thoughts.

_What truth have I seen that I did not know and believe before? I suppose I didn't know my mother's name or face, but it isn't as if I didn't know she was Queen of Jotunheim. There's hardly anything to be gained from that information. _He fiddled with the ring on his finger, watching the band turn round and round, a single emerald passing his gaze every other half-turn, catching the light as it went._ I knelt on ice, I got punched in the stomach, I met some children… Well, I suppose that was something new. I never thought of frostlings… or Jotuniri… being like normal children._

While he couldn't say they had been normal exactly, it wasn't their fault and it certainly wasn't the sort of abnormality he expected to see. They were orphaned and homeless and living with the threat of war hanging over their heads. Asgardian children had suffered similar things and responded in similar ways, not to mention that most of those conditions… fell on his shoulders, not theirs. _But I am also a frost giant. Wouldn't this just be an example of one heartless beast turning against another? _It sounded familiar, but it didn't sit well with him, and he was starting to develop an idea as to why.

_"You were raised as a hero, only to find out that you were really a monster."_

He was raised as a hero. That much was certainly true. For as far back as he could remember, he was considered to be a prince and a hero simply because he was a son of Odin. Thor's shadow loomed over him constantly, but it wasn't as if he was looked upon with disdain or hatred or disgust. He was mischievous, and he would sometimes overhear the servants talking about what an unruly child he was, but no one had ever treated him as though he were less than an Asgardian.

Not until three years ago.

When he learned of his true nature, he suddenly felt as though everyone was against him. Like they had known all along and had been talking about him behind his back for centuries. It wasn't just the fact that he was a Jotun that upset him—it was the slimy, degrading feelings that came with it.

_But I was not different. Not right away, at least, and yet… _He curled and uncurled his fingers, examining the lines on his hands carefully. _I felt different. I saw things differently. If I were raised on Jotunheim, I wouldn't have had that problem… unless… unless I went to Asgard. _

Was that it, then? Was that the truth he was supposed to see? That the only difference between Asgardians and Jotuns was the very knowledge of them being from two different realms? It seemed like that was the case. Raghnall saw Loki's situation as a chance to observe the Jotuns as a race of people rather than monsters—to view them through their own eyes, quite literally, and understand their perspective.

But did he believe it?

Standing up, he moved over to the pallet he used as a bed and lay down on his side, a blanket beneath him and a cape overtop, the warm rune stone clutched to his chest. _I don't know what to think. _He closed his eyes, drawing his legs in closer to his body with a soft sigh. _I don't know. I don't even know if I want to know. _

Because it would be so easy to continue on the path he had started paving for himself. To let hatred and fury and whatever preconceived notions he had about the truth take him over and rule his mind, let it fuel his lust for destruction and drive him until he finally felt his thirst for revenge satisfied. Thor, Odin, Jotunheim, Midgard, Asgard—they could all burn, and he wouldn't feel a single shred of remorse for any of it, only delight and fulfillment.

It would be so easy… but it would just be another lie. Everything he had ever thought to be true turned out to be a lie, and it was that fact that brought on this desolate rage and craving for revenge. Would it be wise to trade one lie for another in the pursuit of happiness?

"Raghnall, will you wake me when Thor arrives?"

A quiet hum came from the cell bars. "I will."

Trying hard to push the thoughts from his mind, Loki focused on the task of sleeping, chanting various facts and patterns in his mind until he was lulled into a deep, much-needed slumber.

* * *

Boots struck the cold, stone floor one after the other, each following and surpassing its twin before falling behind again while blue eyes darted one way and then the next in search of their goal. He knew, of course, that this could be a trap laid by the Jotuns to have both of Asgards princes in their custody, but he had to have a little faith in the fear his father had instilled within the race many centuries ago. Hopefully, it held well enough to protect not only the older son but the younger son as well.

Thor rounded the corner and continued running down the hall, struggling to calm his racing thoughts and anxious heart. _I wonder if I should have brought some food. I don't know what they're feeding him, if they're feeding him at all, but most everything I could think of would freeze here. _He turned another sharp corner and spied the cell down the hall, picking up speed and barely stopping before he hit the gate, frantic hands grasping at the locks and bolts.

"Easy there, Odinson. He's not going anywhere."

Thor cast the guard at the door a brief glare, throwing the door open and rushing to Loki's side, both hands coming down on the motionless god's shoulders. "Loki! Loki, are you alright? Can you hear me?" He shook him lightly, biting back the urge to shout again. "Loki, it's—"

"Thor, could you be any more disruptive?"

Heedless of the scathing words, Thor let out a sigh and dropped his hands into his lap, relief flooding through his bloodstream at the sight of his brother with lively red eyes and blue skin that had suffered only moderate amounts of damage.

_Wait._

"Loki, you are—you are a Jotun." Thor blurted the words before he could stop himself, inwardly cursing the lack of control he had over his tongue.

Rolling his eyes—his solid red eyes—he sat up and shook his head slowly. "Thor, I thought we established this quite some time ago."

"That is not what I meant." His stomach turned at the color his brother's skin had taken, both hands balling into fists but remaining glued to his lap. _Think, then speak. Think, then speak. Think, then speak. _"I simply meant… you are not usually blue."

Loki nodded his head, his expression quickly turning cold. "I am wearing a ring—my ring, evidently—and it causes me to look… like this… in the same manner the Casket or another Jotun would." He fiddled with the aforementioned ring. "Queen Leiknyrr gave it to me in the hopes that it would inspire those who intend to harm me to step carefully."

"But Loki, how could you—?" Thor watched Loki's hands, remembering what Tony had said about nervousness as Dr. Banner's words echoed in his mind. _Loki is going to find out who he is, and that person might not be who you want him to be. But this isn't about what you want, it's about what Loki needs. _Thor understood that, and he had been trying hard to watch his words and his temper, to pay attention to Loki's body language and habits during the rare occasions when they saw each other.

"Loki… that is… very interesting." Grinning broadly, he gestured to the ring on Loki's finger. "You said it is yours. Was it made for you specifically? Or is it something passed down from generation to generation?"

Leaning back slightly, Loki stared at him, shoulders tense and fingers frozen on the ring mid-turn. "…It was made for me, specifically," he started slowly, watching the other with wary eyes. "It is also enchanted so it cannot fall off, and it adjusts its size to fit my finger. It's… fascinating, really."

Thor nodded. "Then it must be important, which means the queen is most likely correct. Something that specific is sure to make the frost giants think twice before harming you." He smiled again. "This is good, Loki. Don't you think so?"

Once again, Loki hesitated before answering, not that Thor blamed him. "Yes, I think… it isn't as serious as I thought it would be." He paused for a moment and then cleared his throat, gesturing towards his visitor. "Anyway, what have you brought?"

Thor frowned. "What have I…?" He blinked a few times, trying to figure out what Loki meant. "Oh! Oh!" He reached back, grabbing the bag he had slung over his shoulder and completely forgotten about, rambling through an explanation as he pulled it free. "I forgot I had it with me! I must have gotten distracted, I—I was a tad worried, so it must have slipped my mind."

From the doorway came a snort, the guard from before offering up his two cents. "Just a tad."

Once again, all he received was a glare, and then Thor's attention was back on Loki. "These are some things from Midgard." He unzipped the bag and started to hand the contents over, naming them as he went. "This is a letter from the Captain, and this is a letter from Dr. Banner. There are some Midgardian books, a pillow, and a box of locks."

Loki blinked, taking the last item into his arms. "Beg pardon?"

"It is a lock box—a box that you can lock with a key. From what I understand, you are to put important things into it, lock it, and then it will keep your important things safe. Dr. Banner suggested you use it to keep anyone from getting your books or letters." Thor opened it up and pulled out the key, opening it up and revealing a large orange package with a note that claimed Tony was its giver. "I… do not know what that is."

Loki poked it, frowning at the odd noise. "It is like the plastic they wrap around candy bars."

"Indeed, but this is not a candy bar." Thor pointed to the object. "See? It is in the shape of a bag, and it has no corners." He looked up and watched Loki's face for a moment, smiling as the trickster contemplated his surprise gift. "You are welcome to open it, or you can save it for later."

Nodding slowly, Loki pulled away from the box and looked at the things sitting in his lap, brow still creased in confusion. "Indeed… I shall put it off for the time being."

Thor nodded and closed the case again, locking it and setting it on the floor beside Loki's bed. "Keep the key in a safe place, if you can." He extended his hand, dropping the key into Loki's palm and then resting his hands in his lap once more. "You can look through your things, if you like. We don't have to talk."

Even if Thor really, really, really, really wanted to.

Really.

"No, we can talk." Loki put down the book he had been glancing over and set everything else by the pillow and the lock box. "If I look at them now, I won't have anything to occupy me later."

Thor nodded, offering another warm smile. "I… suppose there's no point in asking how you've been but… how have you been?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders, eyes dark and glassy, not at all like they had been when Thor first arrived. "As I said, it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Yet." Sighing heavily, he let his head fall back against the bricks. "Still dreadful, though. Cold, dark, and full of people who want to kill me."

Thor gave a weak smile. "Yes, I thought you might say something like that." He dropped his gaze, knowing what he needed to talk about but having no desire whatsoever to breech the topic. "What… have you learned about Jotunheim?" He wet his lips, keeping his composure as relaxed as he could. "That is, your heritage and past and culture. I—that is what I meant."

Loki gave him the third suspicious stare of the evening. "I have learned much, yes. You'll have to be more specific if you wa—"

"All of it."

Pause.

"All of it?" Loki parroted, blinking slowly.

Thor nodded enthusiastically. "All of it. I want to hear about everything you've learned." No, he didn't. He wanted to tell Loki to ignore all of his surroundings because he was Asgardian, he was Thor's brother, he was a son of Odin, and he needed to come _home_. But it wasn't about what Thor wanted, it was about what Loki needed. He had to remember that. For both of their sakes.

"I… well, I've learned a few different things." He paused, resting his hands on his knees and glancing upwards for a few moments before wading into the proposed conversation. "I met some Jotuniri. Five of them, actually, they came by earlier today."

Thor frowned, cocking his head to the side. "Jotun…iri…?"

"Frostlings," Loki explained, casting a quick glance at the door to his cell. "However, they find that term offensive, and the proper term is Jotuniri."

Nodding slowly, Thor repeated the word under his breath. "Jotuniri… alright, so there were five of them, and they came down this morning."

Loki confirmed the accuracy with a quick nod. "Yes. Two of them were orphans, one was homeless, and the other two were housing the homeless child. None of them had ever seen an Asgardian before, and at the time I didn't look like this. They were fascinated, to say the least."

Thor chuckled, covering his mouth when the other glowered at him. "I am sorry, Loki, but when I imagine you with five little ones hanging from your person, I cannot help myself." While he did stop laughing, the grin remained on his features for a little while longer. "Were the two orphans without homes as well? Perhaps I could bring them some things when I come to visit tomorrow."

For a moment, Loki didn't say anything. His hands came together, fingers massaging and rubbing each other, toes curling and uncurling against the floor. "They probably won't come back," he said after a while. "Bjolan was the oldest boy and one of the orphans, and he only wanted to see me because he knew I was the one who attacked Jotunheim and killed his parents."

Thor watched a plethora of expressions travel across his brother's face, very aware of the conflict going through Loki's mind. "You… you have done some terrible things, yes, but you did them with a mindset that was given to you by people you trusted. It makes sense that—"

Loki's laughter interrupted him. "I _mistakenly _trusted them, and at the time of the attack I trusted them no more. I find it amusing, though, that you, of all people, would try to justify my actions."

"I was not justifying them, simply explaining them," the thunderer defended, eyebrows knitting together slightly. "I still do not approve of what you've done, Brother, but I—"

"I'm not your brother!"

Thor was stung by the words, but he only offered a quiet apology and then continued. "I'm sorry. I still do not approve of what you've done, Loki, but I have been trying to understand why you did it. I am trying to, as they say on Midgard, walk a mile in your shoes."

Loki blinked, shaking his head. "What?"

"They say it to describe experiencing life through another's eyes."

"Tch." Snorting, the younger god shook his head again. "That's ridiculous. Putting on someone's shoes doesn't change anything about how you understand the world. It is a pointless and illogical metaphor."

Thor smiled slightly, trying to decide whether or not to point out that Loki was changing the subject. "I agree with you, but it makes sense to the Midgardians, so I go along with it." Pausing, he watched his brother's face, eyes running over the risen lines and varying shades of blue. "Does it bother you, Loki?"

There was a long silence as they stared each other down, Loki refusing to answer and Thor refusing to back down or ask again. He knew he didn't need to explain himself, for his question was obvious, and he was certain of the answer just from watching his brother's face.

"It does, doesn't it?" he pressed, reaching out to touch Loki's arm before remembering that he couldn't because of the very thing they were discussing. "Loki, if—"

"What is wrong with you?"

The question caught Thor off guard, and it took him a few moments to answer, his head slowly turning from side to side. "I… do not understand."

Red eyes narrowed into slits, the trickster's teeth showing as he leaned forward and hissed his explanation, fingers clawing into the sheet beneath him. "You and this—this level-headedness. Your talking, your temperament, the way you haven't been throwing your foolish ideas in my face at every given turn, the way you've given me space when I know you wanted nothing more than to kick down my door and throttle me while dragging me back to Asgard so I can be your pet brother again. Do you understand _that_, Odinson?"

Thor swallowed, nodding his head. "Yes, I do. I have been behaving very abnormally, I know… but there is nothing wrong with me. In fact, I—I think I might be getting things right for the first time in quite a while. After receiving some advice, I have been trying to see things from your point of view…" Taking a deep breath, he steadied his voice and continued, fingers curling around his knees as he spoke. "Loki, you were raised for—for over a thousand years to believe something with all of your heart that wasn't true. Learning about those lies hurt you, and I… I only cared about my own feelings towards the situation. It was selfish... and I am sorry."

Loki didn't say a word, his jaw clenched and body stiff, though Thor couldn't tell whether it was anger or fear or something else entirely. He was shaking, his eyes moist and glassy, leaving Thor with the feeling that he had done something horribly wrong.

"I… I know that an apology cannot fix what I've done, but Loki, I am trying. I swear, I am doing everything I can to repair some of the damage I have caused. I know I can never make it up to you, but maybe I can make some of it right again. Maybe—"

"Leave, Thor." Loki clenched his teeth, shaking harder, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Thor startled, the words sending physical pain through his chest and stomach. "But I—"

"Leave!"

Loki's scream echoed down the hall, and Thor quickly jumped to his feet. He still didn't know what he had done, but it was very obvious that his first instinct was correct—whatever it was, it was very, very wrong.

_Don't make me leave when you sit there with tears in your eyes. Let me comfort you, please, you are my little brother no matter what, let me be there for you. I'll find a way to make things better, I promise, just please let me hold you. Please…_

Turning towards the door, he started to walk, pausing at the bars and speaking softly. "I'm sorry, Loki. Should I not return tomorrow?"

Silence filled the prison, and the thunderer's heart sank into the pit of his stomach. Loki wasn't even talking to him, it seemed, and he didn't know when he would get clearance for someone else to come and see him. Sighing, he opened the door and stepped out, beginning the long journey down the hall.

"Every day."

Thor halted, not turning around for fear Loki would think he was gloating. "Every day." His heart felt but an ounce lighter, and it was with slow and heavy footfalls that he made his way out of the prison, his own eyes burning with unshed tears of remorse and frustration.

_Brother, please… please, please, please…_

He didn't know what else to think.

_Please…_

* * *

Loki watched him leave through a veil of tears, cursing himself for his inability to dry his eyes on command. He wasn't sad, he wasn't hurt, he wasn't even upset—he was angry, and yet the angrier he got, the more his eyes watered.

_He's lying to me. Just like Odin, just like Frigga, just like Queen Leiknyrr, just like the Avengers. He realized he can't get to me by shouting the same thing over and over, so he's trying a new tactic. It all has the same end result. It's not different, not really. _

Swinging his arm out, he threw his fist against the wall and relished in the pain that spread though his bones. It _was_ different. It was different because Thor couldn't lie to Loki. He was honest to a fault, and when pitted against Loki's sharp tongue and skill for the woven word, there was simply no way the god of thunder could pull a fast one on the god of lies.

Slender fingers curled through his hair, pulling on the tangled strands as his knees drew closer to his chest, his forehead coming down hard on the bony knobs. _I have to get a grip. I have to get a grip. _Raising his head, he searched desperately for something to occupy his mind with, finding the two unread letters almost immediately and snatching them up without another moment of hesitation.

He practically tore the first one open, not bothering to see who it was from but quickly realizing from the content that it was from Steve. _Don't think, don't think, don't think. _Running a hand through his hair he reclaimed the letter in both hands and started to read, stopping every now and then to dab at his eyes.

_ Dear Loki,_

_ I'm not sure if I should tell you this or not because it's kind of embarrassing, but I took breakfast to your room this morning… only to find that you weren't there. Let it never be said that you were not missed._

_ Clint said he saw Brianna today, and she asked about you. He told her you were on vacation, and when she asked where, he said the North Pole. I think that was his attempt at a joke, but I'm not sure whether or not you'll find it funny… I hope you do. I bet you need a few laughs right now._

_ Tony and I started remodeling your room, but when we took in the full amount of the damage, we decided it was a project we weren't sure we could have done in time. It's not like we can call in a construction crew to work on it, and with our day jobs and missions, it would have been a little more than we can swallow. So, we're moving you up onto one of the higher floors, and we're transferring all of your things up there. You'll have a better view of the city, which was Jarvis' idea. He says you spend a lot of time looking out the window._

_ Thor has already started talking to Queen Leiknyrr about allowing Bruce and I to come visit. You probably already guessed, but he's been taking turns moping around like a kicked puppy and pacing the floors in—_

Loki shut the letter and stuffed it back into the envelope, inhaling deeply and slowly in an attempt to keep the anxiety in his stomach at a controllable level. Still trying to deny the problem at hand, he moved on to Bruce's letter and opened it, unfolding it and reading the contents with a slew of thoughts clawing at the back of his mind.

_ Dear Loki,_

_ I asked Thor to get some books on Jotunheim for me from Asgard. It's taking me a while to decipher the language, but I'm trying to get a better handle on how your situation is going to be dealt with and what the limits will be. I really don't think you need to worry about anyone trying to kill you—doing so would essentially be starting a war with Asgard, which is exactly what these negotiations are supposed to avoid—and from what I've discovered so far, there is actually a set time where the prisons are open to civilians. I'm not sure if that applies to you, but you should try and ask around if you can. It's supposed to be a way to allow families to care for their loved ones who have been imprisoned, although I imagine many Jotuns are using this against you. Still, if you could find out when the 'safe' time is, maybe it could offer you some peace of mind…_

_ I sent along a couple books I think you'll like. Read them, if you can, and try and use them as a way to relax. This might sound strange to you, but human bodies are weakened by stress. If you don't find some way to unwind, your body will get weaker and weaker, even if no one is doing anything to it. It's hard to just forget about stress, but for the sake of your health, please try. Also, drink as much water as you have access to. I think you already learned this the hard way, but water is __very important__. I can't underline that enough._

_ Lastly, I know Thor is going to be spending a lot of time with you over the next thirty days since he'll have the most access to you. I've been talking to Thor about the way he handles interactions with you, so if you really need a break from his presence, just tell him so. He's actually been doing really well at—_

Loki closed that one too, placing them both in the lockbox with the orange things and then picking up the books that had been left for him. _Macbeth _was one of them, _To Kill a Mockingbird _was another, and the last was called _Slaughterhouse IV._

They all sounded interesting, and yet he found himself unable to read more than a page of any of them. He would start to read and then find himself overwhelmed with unwelcome thoughts and feelings, which would cause him to lose his place. He would then start over only to find the same thing happened the next time around.

To top it all off, his eyes were _still _wet.

"Loki, I think you need to lie down."

Snarling, the prince looked up from his books and sent a sharp glare towards his ever-present, ever-nosy personal prison guard. "What business of yours is this?"

Raghnall only arched an eyebrow, sighing in the same way a parent might sigh at an unruly child. Standing up, he opened the door to the cell and let himself in, closing and locking it in his usual manner before walking over and sitting down next to the rather distraught young man.

"Thinking out loud can really help get your head on straight. Why don't you give it a shot?" the man suggested, pulling out his knife and a piece of wood to partake in his favorite hobby.

Loki snorted, laughing bitterly and dropping his head to his knees again. "That is a wonderful idea. Please, allow me to reveal my private thoughts to you, a complete stranger and ally to my enemies. Brilliant!"

Raghnall didn't look up from his work, crossing his legs at the ankles. "Who better? I know nothing almost nothing about you, and even less about the people you've got on your mind. I'm a stranger. I have no opinions. I'm just a set of ears that you'll probably never see again after the next twenty-nine days are over. I might be a Jotun, but I wouldn't have been placed in charge of you if Queen Leiknyrr thought I had any personal vendetta against you."

Loki turned his head slowly, staring at the wall for a minute or two before folding his arms over his knees and burying his face in the fabric of his sleeves. He really was going to drive himself over the edge if he kept teetering on the brink of an internalized meltdown. Raghnall had never proven himself to be an enemy, and the guard had helped him to sort out at least some of his thoughts earlier that very day.

"…I don't know what to believe, I suppose." He didn't lift his head, not wanting to acknowledge that he was actually speaking to another living being. "All my life I was told one thing, and then everything suddenly changed, and I thought I was getting used to those new concepts, and now… everything is changing again, and I'm not entirely sure it changed the first time." Fingers curled through the cloth over his arms, feet twisting on the stone floor as he struggled to keep his nervousness under control. "When I tried to destroy Jotunheim… Thor came to stop me. I—when we were young, he would brag about how he intended to hunt down and kill every last Jotun, and just like that he was telling me I was wrong for fulfilling those very words. I thought that was his change, I thought Midgard made him soft and sentimental, but now… now it seems as though he's changed again, and I don't even know if what happened to him the first time was genuine or just an act or…"

Shudders racked his body, his voice thick with emotions he did not want. "I don't know what to think. I don't know—about Jotunheim, about this ring, about this form, about my mother. The Captain—a human, someone I enjoy the company of—sent me a letter, and in it he told me of a young girl who inquired about my absence. When I first met her, I thought she was just as pathetic as the rest of the human race, but she revealed herself to be much stronger and more resilient than I realized. So, then, am I to change my opinions on the Jotuniri? On Bjolan and Klaufi and Lini? And if I do, what does that mean for my opinion of Jotunheim as a whole, of myself and this—this skin that I can't get rid of no matter how hard I try?"

He curled in on himself even tighter, his feet no longer twisting for lack of room to move, and his body no longer shaking for the tension in his frame. "Even as a child, I never trusted easily. Those I did trust, I still didn't reveal myself to fully for fear they would look down on me or I would lose their—their pride and affection. Father—" a sob escaped him, and he cursed himself for it, digging his fingernails into the skin of his arms, "—and Thor I trusted, but I felt so inferior that I never wanted either of them to know what I was thinking. I wanted them to believe I was just as strong and unshakable as they were, and they never showed me any weakness, so I felt I had no right to do otherwise to them."

He was rambling now. Loki was rambling and tears were soaking his shirt. His forearms were bleeding, his head was pounding, his nose was running, his face was hot, and he would be skinned half alive if he could make any of it _stop._

"It's not even that important though, you know, it's not even that relevant because they weren't my real family, so it wouldn't have mattered what I did or didn't tell them. I was never, _ever_ a son of Odin and nothing I did was ever going to change that, because I was a son of Laufey by blood regardless of what my actions were or who I believed myself to be. I was a son of Leiknyrr and Laufey, and they decided to make the best move in the history of child-rearing and _leave _me on a _frozen rock _to _die!"_

Somehow his head had been lifted during the mayhem, and he was now shouting towards the bars of his cell, one hand coming up to grab a fistful of his hair. His other hand came up to cover his mouth and nose, lungs burning as he held his breath in a last ditch effort to stop himself before he derailed completely.

Raghnall reached out and picked up the pillow Thor had brought, handing it to Loki and waving his hand towards the other end of the cell once he took it. In an instant, the bars were gone and replaced with a stone wall just like the ones that surrounded them on every other side, and Raghnall resumed his whittling once more.

"Like I said, you should lie down."

Loki stared at the pillow for a second or two, and then slowly lowered his face into it, his hands behind the pillow and the whole mess resting atop his knees. Fingers curled through the fabric as he let himself breathe again, the presence of oxygen causing fresh tears to spring up and burn through his sinuses.

And that was when the floodgates opened.

All of the anger, all of the hatred, all of the fear, all of the desperation, all of the confusion, all of the loneliness, anxiety, doubt, hurt, sadness, rage, distrust, bitterness, jealousy, inferiority, weakness, humiliation—all of the brokenness. It all came rushing out in a single, hoarse, crackling, ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream.

The scream gave way to sobbing and wailing and screams of smaller size and weaker volume. It dissolved into curses and threats and an onslaught of uncensored thoughts coming from the very core of every emotion the god of lies had ever experienced. It rose and it fell, it grew and it shrank, it bounced off of the walls, it hurt his ears and made them ring, it made him want to start from the beginning and break all over again.

Then it started to fade. Slowly, almost unnoticeably at first, it started to give way to the fatigue and exhaustion that racked his body, that conquered him in every sense of the word. Then he found he had no more tears left, and the cries turned hard and dry, rubbing his throat raw and sending shards of glass into his lungs with every rasping inhale. Finally, even his voice failed him, and the last of the cries fell away, leaving him curled up on his side, clutching a pillow and shaking in absolute silence.

And Raghnall didn't say a word. He sat, and he whittled, and he kept the wall up. Loki stared at that wall, stared at it long and hard, wondering if it was real or if there was a group of spectators just beyond it that had seen the whole thing. That had watched the god shatter into a million pieces on the floor.

Then he realized he didn't care.

He grasped the pillow just as tightly as before, and he pulled the cape and the blanket around his body, curling up into the smallest ball he could possibly make of himself. Then he closed his eyes, too drained to make any coherent thought other than the one he found looping at the forefront of his mind unceasingly.

_I want to go home._

He had no idea where home was.

_I want to go home._

He didn't know if he even had one.

_I want to go home._

But he really, really wanted to go there.

_I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home, I want…_


	13. Chapter 13

Steve couldn't imagine a more ironic situation. He hadn't seen this much ice and snow since he had been buried in it, and even then, he didn't really see it. Yet, here he was, walking into the prison where he was told he would be able to find Loki, hearing the frost crunch beneath his boots as he went.

He adjusted his coat, tugging on the sleeves and pulling his hat down further over his ears. Originally, he had planned to wear his uniform for the sake of professionalism, but Thor had disagreed. The Asgardian believed Jotunheim would see it as an unspoken threat, and that Steve would freeze to death in a matter of minutes. Needless to say, Steve wound up layered in a wide variety of warm, heat-conserving civilian clothes.

_From the looks of things, Jotuns can not only survive this weather, but they're actually comfortable in it. I can see a lot of guards wearing nothing but loincloths, and the queen herself wore thin garments that left her stomach and arms exposed._

Clearing his throat, he stepped up to one of the Jotun guards and tapped him on the shoulder, surprised by the sudden chill that invaded his gloved hand. "Excuse me, I'm Captain America, from Midgard." He gestured to his shield as evidence and continued. "I'm here to see Loki, but I'm not sure where to find him. Could you point me in the right direction?"

For a moment, the frost giant only looked at him, examining him with critical, crimson -eyes. Then, after a minute or two had passed, he extended his hand and pointed down the hall to their left. "Turn right twice and left once. He's at the very end."

Steve nodded and smiled warmly. "Thank you."

He immediately started down the indicated hallway, steadily increasing his gait until he was caught somewhere between a jog and a fast walk. There were a lot of cells, he noticed, but most of the ones he could see were empty.

_Either their crime rates are low, or their laws aren't very strict. If it's the latter, we could have a potential problem on our hands in the future. _Steve glanced around, making more notes as he walked, writing down a laundry list of things to put in his report to Director Fury when he returned. Even though S.H.I.E.L.D. had turned Loki over in order to appease Jotunheim, the move had also served as the first interaction between the two realms and had the potential to open some very dangerous doors.

Steve looked down at his shield again, tapping it idly as he walked. _Queen Leiknyrr said she would allow it because it is for self-defense. Better make a note not to use it for any offensive tactics unless I absolutely have to, or I might lose one of my very few advantages here. _

Looking ahead once more, he made the third turn and peered down the hall in search of a familiar face. He didn't find one, but he saw a cell with a guard posted just outside and figured that was where he needed to go. Waving a friendly greeting, he approached the guard with the intent of conversation. "Hi, I'm Captain America, from Midgard." He stuck his hand out, waiting for the giant to take it.

The Jotun looked him over for a long time, just as the last one had, before finally accepting the handshake and offering up his own introduction. "I'm Raghnall. Loki is under my direct supervision while he's here."

Steve nodded and returned his arms to his sides. "Thank you for keeping an eye on him. He's under my direct supervision on Midgard, and I was a little concerned about handing him over to someone else." Laughing quietly, he rubbed the back of his head. "I guess that's a little strange, huh?"

For a moment, Raghnall just stared at him, but then he smiled lightly. "No, I understand."

"Captain, did you come to socialize with me or the guards?"

Unmistakable sarcasm floated from the far end of the cell, and Steve shrugged his shoulders lightly. "Well, he does seem to be better company." He moved towards the bars with a smile and placed his hand on the lock, looking at the guard to ensure that it was alright before unlocking the door and letting himself in. "But, seeing as it's your six day prison anniversary, I guess I can spend some time with you, too."

Loki crossed his arms over his chest but said nothing, a half-hearted smirk lingering on his lips. It was an unusually bleached response, coming from the god of mischief, and Steve would have questioned it immediately had he not found himself preoccupied with Loki's new look.

"How did you change your appearance without magic?" Steve shook his head as soon as he the question passed his lips, waving a hand and sitting down next to Loki on the pallet. "Never mind, you can tell me later. First, tell me how you're doing."

Loki nodded his head, gazing down at his lap where his hands sat fiddling with each other. "I am doing well. I think one of my ribs was broken this morning, but I'm not sure." Pale lips turned upward into a weak smile. "I'm not exactly used to assessing injuries, but it certainly doesn't feel normal, so something must be wrong."

"Would you like me to take a look?" Steve scanned the trickster's face, not liking the glaze he found in the other's eyes. "I'm no doctor, but I know how to identify a broken rib."

Loki shook his head in response. "No. We'll just leave it alone."

Frowning, Captain Rogers scanned the man again, wondering whether or not to press the subject. He was concerned, of course, but even if Loki did have a broken rib, nothing could really be done to treat it. Was it worth disrupting this period of sanctuary for the god?

"Alright, if that's what you want. Broken ribs usually heal on their own, anyway." Steve leaned back against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him and setting his shield on top of his lap. "So, have you read any of the books yet?"

The response was delayed, but eventually the god's head started to bob. "I read _Macbeth_." He exhaled slowly. "I just finished it last night, actually."

_Something is wrong. _Which Steve had fully expected. After being captured and probably tortured by the frost giants, Steve would have been unnerved if something _wasn't _wrong with Loki. But this was different. _Like the day he left._

He could still see Loki's face when he closed his eyes. When he'd blurted out that he wasn't afraid, effectively revealing that he most certainly was, and the moment right after that—the moment the wall took its first blow. Loki's rage had failed him, and the broken spirit left behind was a sight Steve couldn't forget.

"Loki, are you alright?"

"I'm in prison, Captain," the god snorted. "It's hard to be all right."

"That's not what I meant." Blue eyes stared the prince down, unafraid of the dark red gaze that confronted them. "You look like you're dead on your feet. What happened?"

Silence filled the space between them, but Loki didn't try to change the subject or dodge the question. He looked at Steve, and his brow creased thoughtfully, fingers fiddling with the ring on his right hand.

"Nothing happened." He inhaled slowly, eyes wandering up to the ceiling and lingering there for several moments before dropping back down to his hands. "I suppose I have a lot on my mind. That is all."

Steve let a few seconds pass, waiting to see if he had anything else to say before offering his ears. "What kind of things are you thinking about?"

Chuckling, Loki reestablished eye contact and shook his head. "I don't think so. I tried to think out loud a few nights ago, and it didn't go very well."

"Really?" Steve's eyes widened, and he pressed some more. "Why not?"

Loki glared sharply. "Must you do this?"

For a moment, the soldier thought about dropping the subject, but he chose to stand his ground and try to find out what was going on in the trickster's head. "I'm only trying to help. Don't turn me into a frog for saying this, but you aren't exactly famous for your stellar understanding of emotions."

"You wound me," the god drawled.

Steve rolled his eyes. "I'm serious."

Sighing, Loki ran both hands through his hair and let his fingers tangle together behind his neck. "I wound up… very distraught. I do not wish to repeat the experience, as it was rather unpleasant."

"I can understand that." Steve's tone made it clear that he wasn't done yet. "But sometimes you need to get a little upset in order to face what it is that's bothering you. It's like facing your fears. If you never face them, you won't be afraid, but you'll also spend the rest of your life running from them."

"I know how fear works, thank you." Loki swallowed and sat very still, not making a single sound for quite some time. If it weren't for the rise and fall of the blue flesh stretched across his abdomen, Steve might have thought he had stopped breathing altogether.

"Loki…" He stopped, looking down at his shield and deciding to let the topic die. He didn't have the expertise to know for a fact he would give the god good advice, and he knew Bruce would only re-ask the questions when it was his turn to visit. "So… tell me what's been going on. Have you made any new friends?"

"You're hysterical." Shaking his head, the trickster looked around the cell, almost as if he was trying to find an answer to the question written on the walls somewhere. "Did Thor tell you about the little ones?"

Steve tilted his head slightly, thinking back to his conversations with Thor but coming up blank. "No, I don't think so."

Loki gave a quick nod. "I see." His lips came together tightly, hands folded together in his lap, eyes growing glassy. Steve wasn't sure how to interrupt, or if he even should, and silence reigned in the cell for a solid five minutes before Loki finally broke it.

"Captain, tell me about racism."

Steve, caught off-guard, took a few moments to get his bearings. "I—uh, sure. What do you want to know about it?"

"How would you define it, and what do you think about it?"

Steve sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. Only Loki could ask a complex question that was bound to have an extensive, equally complicated answer as if he were asking for the time. Still, he got the feeling he understood the reason for the breech of topic, and he wanted to make sure he didn't give the god any wrong ideas.

"Racism is when you treat someone as lower than yourself, view them as lower than yourself, or assume they would do something you or society disapprove of based only on their race. For example, if I assumed that Raghnall here," he gestured to the guard, "was less intelligent than myself because he's from Jotunheim, that would be racist of me. There's no basis for it whatsoever other than his birthplace and the color of his skin."

Loki nodded his head, crossing his legs and watching the other intently. Raghnall also found himself interested in the conversation—most likely because Steve had pulled him into it—and was leaning against the bars, watching Captain America with careful eyes.

"Racism is unfounded, illogical, morally wrong, unjust, narrow-minded, and it can be downright cruel. It's a serious issue, too. When America still bought and sold African Americans as slaves, there were a lot of strong feelings about it, and even today it would be almost impossible to find someone who can't make up their mind." Steve paused when he heard the guard at the door clearing his throat, his expression lightening in silent permission to interrupt.

"So, you don't sell slaves anymore?" Raghnall asked, curiosity lacing his tone.

Steve shook his head. "Not in America. It divided our country and eventually lead to the Civil War, which was won by the Union from the North and lead to the abolishment of slavery." It was a very short version, but it answered the question well enough. "However, slavery still exists in many countries around the world, and racism is still something America struggles with today. Not everyone believes people are created equal, and while civil rights have come a long way, there's still some groups and factions of people who cling to those old ideas."

Loki nodded his head, picking at the skin between his fingers and keeping his gaze directed towards his hands. "So, in other words, you would not see the children on this planet as any different than those found on Midgard?"

Steve tilted his head. "Well, I mean, Midgardian kids can't freeze things or survive temperatures this cold, but that's still not a difference in value. It's sometimes tough to draw the lines, because you have to acknowledge that different races _are _different and so are the cultures they live in, but they're all equal in value and rights. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah." Raghnall nodded, flipping his pocketknife in his hand.

There was a brief pause, but Loki finally agreed. "Yes, I understand."

Steve gave the two of them a thumbs up, happy to see there would be no fighting and pleased with Loki's curious, questioning attitude. He had expected Loki to become more guarded and closed up as his sentence on Jotunheim continued, but it looked as though the opposite was happening. He was so overwhelmed, he _couldn't _close himself up, and he had no choice but to come to terms with some of the struggles he would spend the next several years of his life sorting out.

_I wish Bruce were here. He would know how to handle this. He would know what to say and what all of the psychological implications were. There's no way I'll remember all of Loki's facial expressions and body language when I'm giving Bruce an update tonight._

"Loki, have you taken a look at Tony's gift yet?" Steve tried to change the subject to something lighter, not wanting to overload the god with more monumental thoughts and concepts, only to leave him to digest it all alone.

Red eyes flickered over to the lockbox and then back to the soldier's face. "Yes, I did. They were very tasty."

Steve smiled widely. "They're Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Tony loves them."

He had been surprised by Tony's random and wordless addition to the lockbox, but after pondering it for a minute or two, it made perfect sense. Tony had been in captivity, and if Steve recalled correctly, one of the first things he got upon his return was a cheeseburger. Loki was now in a similar situation, so Tony had sent along comfort food based on his own experience.

"So…" the trickster mused, "that is what they are called."

Steve pulled himself out of his thoughts and smiled. "Yup."

Loki gave a quiet nod, his expression blank and eyes glazed over. It looked like he was lost in thought again, his fingers starting to twitch and fiddle atop his thighs. He swallowed, focusing on his hands for a moment before losing focus once again, staring at nothing in particular as he continued to fidget.

"Loki."

Hearing his name, the god looked up and blinked a few times. "Yes?"

"We haven't forgotten you." Steve levelled his gaze at the captive man, his supposedly cliché but heartfelt honesty shining bright in his eyes. "Just twenty-four more days, and then things will be back to somewhat normal."

A smile flickered across Loki's features. "Somewhat normal, hmm?"

"Well, I mean, if you think it's normal to live in a giant tower along with your demigod not-brother, one of the smartest and richest people on Midgard, humanity's first super soldier, a couple of master assassins, and the Incredible Hulk, then…" He let his voice trail, smile broadening when he managed to pull a faint chuckle from the god's lips.

_He's going to be alright, we just have to be careful. He has to know that this isn't just a political arrangement, otherwise he's just going to get bitter and resentful again._

"So, is anyone going to tell me whose idea it was to wear loincloths in this weather?"

_He's going to be alright._

* * *

"Woah! How did you do that?"

Loki smiled slightly and extended his hand, tongue flashing over the cut on his upper lip out of recent habit. "It is actually quite easy once you know the secret." He retracted his arm and started to fiddle with the string again, pulling it this way and that until it had been tied into what appeared to be a large knot. "You just have to blow on it properly. Why don't you give it a try?"

Klaufi bounced a little closer, leaning forward and blowing onto Loki's cupped hands. Eyes wide with fascination, he watched as Loki pulled both ends of the string, the knot dissolving into a single line of cotton.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Bjolan questioned, standing a few feet away with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. "Or is that common knowledge on Asgard?"

Loki shook his head. "Not really. I learned it from one of Thor's friends. He had a fondness for impressing the ladies with tricks and games and… other displays of grandiosity." He smiled a little at the memory of a young Fandral impressing girls with his supposed magic.

Klaufi leaned into Loki's side and tugged on his sleeve, staring up at him with wide eyes. "Where did you learn your real magic? You know, with the spells and the runes and stuff."

"Queen Frigga taught me all of the basics, and after she laid the foundations, I began to study magic on my own." He cast a brief glance at his hands, once again made painfully aware of his depowered state.

"Did you use magic to attack Jotunheim?" Bjolan asked, his gaze sharp.

Loki met it evenly, his expression neither mocking nor ashamed. "No. When I attempted to destroy Jotunheim, I opened the Bifrost and did not let it close. It's not meant to be kept that way, and as the power began to build, it started to cut through the planet."

Bjolan looked away, occupying himself with the wall and keeping his arms folded snugly against his chest. Loki was getting used to the boy's behavior, and he had decided that the constant situation of his arms was a subconscious move towards self-defense, so it didn't irritate him half as much as it used to.

"I hear footsteps," Klaufi said suddenly, tugging on Loki's sleeve again as he sought instruction. "Do we have to go? Can we come back later?"

Frowning, Loki placed a hand on the boy's head to silence him and peered down the hallway, waiting to see who it was before offering an answer. It didn't take very long, for the moment the visitor rounded the corner, Loki was able to identify him and quickly addressed the little blue creatures at his side.

"You may stay. He will not hurt you."

Bjolan discreetly inched closer, and Loki restrained the smirk that threatened to curl his lips. _You claim to hate me, and yet any time you hear someone coming, you come closer as if you think I'll protect you. _On one hand it was irritating, but on another it was endearing. Loki simply couldn't decide which hand he wanted to go with.

"Loki, I did not think you would have visitors at this hour. Are these the Jotuniri you spoke of?"

Klaufi squeaked, crawling under Loki's blanket and drawing a sigh from the lips of the fallen god. Reaching under, he grabbed the child around the waist and dragged him out. "None of that, now. Thor won't hurt you."

Laughing heartily, the thunderer let himself into the cell and approached the trio, kneeling down on the ground a few feet away and waving to them. "Hello, little ones. I am Thor, of Asgard. It is very nice to meet you."

"I'm Bjolan," the still distant child stated, jerking his head towards the smaller boy, "and this is my brother, Klaufi."

"Brother, I can introduce myself!" the younger objected.

"Does it really matter?"

Klaufi nodded seriously. "Yes."

"Fine, then." Bjolan rolled his eyes. "You do it. Go on, you can reintroduce yourself."

Clearing his throat, the littlest of the group looked up at Thor and smiled. "I'm Klaufi, of Jotunheim. It's nice to meet you."

Thor laughed at the exchange while Loki shook his head, the older prince speaking to the children with an exuberant and cheerful disposition. "That was very nicely done, Klaufi! You're both so grown up. How old are you?"

Shifting slightly, Bjolan looked between his brother and the Asgardian, hesitating for quite some time before giving Thor the answer he wanted. "I am 124 years old, and Klaufi is 98."

Loki's eyes widened slightly, a look of approval crossing his face. "I would have thought you to be at least a decade older. You are indeed mature for your age, Bjolan."

Grinning, Thor leaned forward and gave the younger boy a wink. "And you are almost one century old. That's very exciting!"

Klaufi giggled, obviously no longer scared of the Asgardian but still holding onto Loki's blanket with one of his hands. Bjolan still had his arms crossed, and every time the conversation turned to him, he seemed to shrink away ever-so-slightly, always narrowing his eyes just enough to look displeased.

_They are both afraid, but they show it in different ways._

"Thor, what are you doing here?" Klaufi wiggled his toes, watching the blonde with curious eyes. "Did you come to see Loki? Is Loki your friend?"

Still smiling like an idiot, Thor nodded and shifted his position so he was sitting cross-legged. "Yes, I came to see Loki, and yes, he is my friend. We were raised in the Asgardian palace together as princes."

Bjolan blinked, tilted his head to the side. "Wouldn't that make you kin?"

At this point, Loki intercepted, casting Thor a brief glance that told him to keep his mouth shut on the details. "I was adopted into the royal family and raised as one of their own. That is the only relation between us."

Thor gave a jerky nod and a tight-lipped smile, his eyes flickering down towards his lap. "It is as Loki says. We were raised together, we played together, we fought together… but that is all." Swallowing, he turned the topic of conversation back to the little ones, avoiding Loki's gaze. "Loki has told me the two of you are in a difficult situation."

Bjolan glared, his body tensing. "We're fine."

"Psst!" Klaufi leaned forward and whispered loudly, cupping both of his hands around his mouth. "Don't listen to him. He's really hungry and tired all the time."

"Klaufi!" the older brother snapped. "That is none of _their_ business."

Loki opened his mouth to explain that, because it was his own fault they were orphaned, it was very much their business, but Thor jumped into the conversation before he had the chance.

"We do not need to know the details in order to help you, and you need not use us as a crutch. If you let me, we can work together to find the things you need. It would be like an adventure—an older warrior passing on to a younger warrior the essentials of survival." He grinned widely, sticking out his hand towards the boy. "What do you say, Bjolan? Will you go adventuring with me while I am here?"

For a long while, the boy just stared at him. Then he stared at the hand, slowly dropping his arms to his sides and looking at the thunderer's fingers as though they could turn into knives at any moment.

"I… No, I won't." His arms came back up, crossing and pressing tightly against his bare chest. "I can't."

Loki spoke up then, his coaxing voice sliding out in a smooth comparison to Thor's booming one. "Bjolan, Thor cannot hurt you. Even if it wanted to, it would cause much war and destruction, and King Odin would punish him severely."

Bjolan swallowed hard, curling in on himself and staring at his feet. He didn't say a word, though his gaze did travel up and down, sweeping over the occupants of the cell as he assessed the situation a second time. Finally, he found himself staring at Thor's still outstretched arm, his entire body rigid with anxiety.

"…I can't shake your hand. You'll be hurt."

Thor grinned. "Give it a try, Bjolan."

Frowning, the boy stuck out his hand and cautiously approached, grasping the offered arm below the elbow and watching as Thor did the same. Blue light shone through the gaps where their skin met, but both of them remained unharmed, and there were no marks left over when they dropped their hands again.

Loki blinked, his expression one third amazed, one third angered, and one third suspicious. "Thor, what was that? No, allow me to rephrase. Thor, from where or from whom did you get that?"

"Mother." Still speaking, he reached down the front of his shirt and producing a leather strap with a dangling, blue crystal on the end. "I went to Asgard to ask her if there was a way I could protect myself when making physical contact with a frost giant. She told me she used a necklace when you were a babe, and after strengthening some of the spells, she gave that necklace to me." He smiled, clearly proud of himself, and clutched the pendant to his chest.

"Hmm… that will certainly be useful." Loki wet his lips but didn't speak, swallowing his words as he examined the shimmering crystal from afar. "It was excellently made. It shouldn't fail you unless someone directly attacks the spells or tries to remove them." He didn't speak his mind any more than that, but he couldn't quite repress the thoughts pushing up from beneath the surface.

_She crafted a pendant so she could hold me at all times. Leiknyrr didn't want to hold me at all. But Frigga lied to me, and Leiknyrr is excruciatingly honest._

"Thor." Loki interrupted his own thoughts, placing a hand on the little head by his ribs. "You should take Bjolan now rather than later to ensure you get back before the prisons close. Klaufi can stay here with me so he won't get lost or hurt in your, ah, adventures."

Blue eyes flooded with concern, brow creasing as the idea was contemplated. "Loki, I can see that you are able to sit up on your own, but you are hardly in a condition suited for taking care of a child."

Scowling, the trickster turned his head away, one hand coming up to rub at his midsection absentmindedly. "I know that I'm a little worse for the wear—"

Raghnall's familiar, albeit mocking, laughter interrupted him. "Last I checked, you've got yourself a couple of broken ribs and about a hundred bruises and cuts, not to mention the pulled muscles in your leg and the blow to your head that sent you under for a couple minutes."

Loki glowered darkly, crossing his arms over his chest and staring his older brother down, Raghnall's list falling on deaf ears. "Thor, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and Klaufi. We're just going to sit here and learn some string tricks, and Raghnall is here with us as well." He could feel his heart rate picking up, frustration seeping into his voice as the worry on Thor's face grew.

"Loki, you don't have any of your healing abilities or—"

"I am _fine, _Thor, and I don't want to hear another word on the subject."

"But—"

"Not. Another. Word."

For a moment, Thor looked as though he were going to refuse, but then he let out a heavy sigh and got to his feet, dusting off his pants. "Bjolan, are you alright with this arrangement?"

"It's alright, Brother!" Klaufi wrapped Loki's blanket around his shoulders and made himself comfortable against the god's side. "You go with Thor, I'll stay here. When you come back, I'll show you a magic trick! Okay?" He shifted his weight as he spoke, trying to find a position that wouldn't cause Loki to flinch in pain.

Bjolan stared for a long time, red eyes flickering between the four other people present. Loki could read him like a book, his face composed of words and phrases that spelled out his thoughts in crisp, black ink. Bjolan didn't trust Loki or Thor, but he did trust Raghnall, and he didn't want his brother to go back out into the black wilderness. He was conflicted and still incredibly terrified, but he was also hungry and needed to get a more permanent shelter for himself and his brother.

_Use your head, Bjolan. _Loki willed him to listen to reason, already feeling his patience with Thor wearing thin. _Go on. Go. _It wasn't even as if Thor was doing anything wrong. No, it was the awareness of his own physical state and the sensation of Thor's shadow crawling over him again, even if it came with the purest of intentions.

"Bjolan," Loki started, catching the boy's attention and meeting his eyes. "I have no reason to hurt Klaufi, and even if I did, Raghnall wouldn't let me. You know that."

Still frowning, the little one started to walk towards the cell door, passing a wary glance over both Asgardians. "I suppose… we can go now…"

Thor followed him out with an encouraging smile, giving Loki final, very worried glance over his shoulder. "We will be back soon. Take care of each other." Then, turning away from the cell, he started down the hall on Bjolan's right, launching into a long-winded explanation of the best ways to prepare a shelter without manmade supplies.

After they left, Klaufi decided he wanted attention and gave another familiar tug to Loki's sleeve. "Will you teach me a magic trick now?"

Loki nodded, a light smile pulling at his lips, and he tugged on the end of his blanket until it produced another thread. "Here, this one will be yours. We'll start with something simple, and you must practice until you can do it with relative ease."

Klaufi nodded, taking the string into his hands and waiting for further instruction.

"Now, the first thing you're going to do is fold the string over your forefinger and middle finger. That's this one and this one." He pointed to the specific digits and waited for Klaufi to complete the move before continuing. "Then, you want to take the bottom string here and wrap it around your fingers once."

_I still have three weeks to survive, and Thor's right. My physical state isn't good, and if I'm not careful, I could wind up severely injured or dead regardless of Odin's pact with Jotunheim._ Instructions continued to flow from his mouth, demonstrating what he wanted the child to do with his own hands as he spoke. _If Mo—Frigga gave Thor a pendant to enable him to help me, I wonder if she would send along an elixir if asked. Of course, that might break the details of the agreement, and Odin certainly wouldn't be pleased about my receiving help. And if Odin isn't pleased, then Thor isn't either, and he's my only contact with the other realms at the moment. Blast…_

"That's very good, Klaufi. Now, with your left hand, pulling on the two strings and watch what happens." Loki didn't demonstrate this part, wanting the boy to realize the trick on his own.

"It winked at me!" Giggling, the little boy extended his hands, using the string tangled around his fingers to wink at the god. "It winked at you, too."

Loki raised his hands and winked back, chuckling softly. "You did a very nice job."

Klaufi leaped forward in response, throwing his arms around the trickster's neck and hugging him tight. "Thank you, Loki!"

"C-careful!"

Klaufi froze at the noise of discomfort, carefully readjusting his arms and legs so he wasn't putting any pressure on Loki's midsection. "Better?"

Instinct told Loki to push the boy away, but Klaufi really wasn't doing any harm, and it wasn't as if anyone besides Raghnall could see the exchange. So, slowly and reluctantly, he wrapped his arms around the small form on his lap and returned the gesture, patting Klaufi's shaggy, black hair.

"Yes, it's better. You're welcome, and I'm glad you liked the trick."

Flopping backwards and untangling the string from his hands so he could start over, the boy continued to giggle and smile. "Are you coming back, Loki? After you get out of prison, I mean. Are you gonna come and live here?"

Loki startled a bit at the question, and as he opened his mouth to respond, he realized he didn't have an answer. If he had been asked nine days ago, he wouldn't have hesitated to state his utter disgust towards the planet and any notion of living upon it. But things had changed, and he was more confused than ever about who he was and where he belonged. He couldn't say for sure that he would come back, but he couldn't say for sure that he wouldn't.

"I… don't know."

"Why not?" Klaufi asked, already starting to form the first step of the wink.

Sighing, Loki joined him, staring at his hands as his mind sought the words to speak. "It's hard to explain, but there are a lot of things happening right now. I don't even know when my sentence will be over, or when I will be allowed to leave Midgard for any reason other than prison terms. It's… it's all very complicated at the moment."

Klaufi nodded, his expression painted with undertones of confusion. "Oh… well, I hope you do come back. Even if you don't live here… maybe you could visit me sometime?"

Nodding his head slightly, Loki conceded to the request. "I think I can say with certainty that you will see me again."

"Good!" Klaufi smiled to himself and looked down at his hands. "Um… Loki, I forgot what comes after step one."

Loki shook his head with a faint smile. "You are only learning, so you will forget things often. What comes after step one is the step where you take the string next to your middle finger and wrap it around the two fingers the string is already on. If you think about the mechanics behind it, you have…"

* * *

_Well, it's like they say. When it rains, it pours._

Bruce leaned against the bars to Loki's cell, looking in through the metal lines at the figure splayed atop the miserable excuse for a bed in the corner. Dried blood stained the prisoner's clothing, and the cape Thor had left behind was no longer the bright red of Asgardian royalty, but rather, a reddish brown similar to the color of rust or clay. The floor was splattered and speckled with the life liquid, the angles and shapes too chaotic to give the doctor any idea as to what he was dealing with.

And of course, Loki himself wasn't looking well at all.

"So," Bruce turned towards the guard on his right, "you said most of this happened within the last twenty-four hours?"

The Jotun nodded, shrugging his shoulders. "It usually happens that way. Things will be mild to moderate for a while, but then a group of youngsters will drink their weight in ale and rile each other up. From there, it's a matter of how many there are and how far they'll go."

Bruce nodded slowly, turning back towards the cell and exhaling slowly, white steam billowing from his mouth as a result. "How many times has this happened?"

"For Loki? Just this once."

_That's not bad, considering the fact that we're halfway through his sentence. Still, I don't like the thought of him struggling through the next fifteen days like this. _He glanced at the guard again, taking in his expression before averting his eyes towards the unconscious lump on the floor. _This guard seems to be a neutral enough party, and the queen knows why I'm here, so she shouldn't try to interfere any time soon._

Reaching out, Bruce grasped the bar that held the door shut and lifted it, letting himself in with a quick word of thanks to his unnamed informant. Then he walked over to Loki and crouched down, putting his medical bag on the ground and pulling out his StarkPhone.

_Let's see what we have here. _He adjusted his glasses, placing the device next to Loki's head and setting up a quick brain scan. _His face is bruised up pretty badly, he needs stitches in his upper lip, his fingers need a lot of attention, and that cut on his head needs cleaned up before infection can set in._

He hadn't even seen Loki's entire body yet.

"Hnn…"

Bruce picked up the phone just as Loki turned his head, placing it a couple of inches away and digging through the contents of his bag in search of Novocain. "Loki, can you hear me? This is Dr. Banner. How are you feeling?"

Loki stared long and hard at the doctor, his expression a blend of disorientation, fatigue, and vacancy. He seemed to recognize Bruce, but if he had any idea where they were or what was going on, it would be a surprise.

"Loki, do you think you can lie still while I stitch up your lip?" he asked, creating a small pile of supplies on his lap as he spoke. "I'll give you a shot so you won't feel the stitches, but the syringe needle will pinch a bit, and you can't move your head around."

Loki moaned softly and blinked at the ceiling, otherwise unresponsive.

Deciding Loki was too disoriented to answer, Bruce reached back into his bag and pulled out a syringe, carefully preparing it with the numbing agent. "Hold still," he mumbled, taking the bruised chin in his thinly gloved hand and carefully puncturing the skin on the left-hand side of Loki's upper lip. "It's just a little pinch, you're alright."

His words fell on deaf ears, and Loki whimpered at the sudden, rather unpleasant sensation, trying to pry his face away. He was unsuccessful, and soon enough, Bruce was pulling out the successfully emptied syringe and setting it aside. It would take a few minutes for Loki to lose feeling, however, so the doctor grabbed a gauze pad and doused it in hydrogen peroxide, gently cleaning the blood from Loki's forehead and revealing the oozing cut underneath.

"D… oc…"

"It's alright, I'm just cleaning it." He continued to dab, glancing at the rest of Loki's body from time to time. _We knew something like this could happen. I should have been more prepared._

Loki shifted, trying to turn his head again and letting out a frustrated grunt when he couldn't. Bruce didn't know how to explain it to him, either. At least, not in terms Loki would understand in his current, befuddled state.

"Loki, you can't move right now, okay? I need your head to stay very still. I know you don't understand, but if you don't let me do this, you could get very sick." Glancing at his watch, he determined that enough time had passed since the injection and began cleaning the split halves of Loki's lip, still mumbling sweet nothings under his breath. "Everything's alright, Loki. Queen Leiknyrr herself gave me permission to come down here. Nobody's going to kick me out, nobody's going to hurt you, and if they try, well… I don't know how the Other Guy would feel about that."

Joking about the Hulk wasn't something he made a habit of, and he wasn't even sure if it was the right kind of encouragement given Loki's prior experience with the monster, but it was the only thing he could think of that was both accessible at any time and stronger than the Jotuns.

Finally, Loki's mouth was clean and disinfected, leaving only the stitches to be done. Bruce didn't think it would take too many, but he knew he had to be careful about freezing his fingertips as well as Loki moving suddenly and sending the needle into his gums or nose.

_This is no place to perform any sort of medical procedure._

"Now." Bruce threaded the needle and carefully took the god's lip between his fingers. "It's very, very important that you stay still." Moving quickly, he got the needle through and back, tying it off just as the frost started to bite at his fingertips. "You can't pick at this, either. You have to let it heal."

Loki stared up at the ceiling, eyes cloudy and unfocused.

Concerned as he was about the other's lack of attentiveness, at the moment, it served to be useful. Loki didn't move an inch, and Bruce was able to complete the stitches and bandage the facial lacerations in record time.

After a quick break spent warming his fingers, Bruce moved down the pallet and started to examine Loki's right hand, worrying his lip at the swollen joints and dark bruises. Then, carefully, he lifted the arm from the floor and turned it over in his hands, gingerly pushing the digits up and down. Loki whined at the movement, but there wasn't much Bruce could do to help him at the moment.

_Broken index finger… and another break in this one… that's just broken blood vessels… swollen wrist… _Sighing, he shook his head and set Loki's hand down on his thigh. _Two broken bones in his dominant hand. He's never had a broken bone in his life. _Thankfully, Bruce would be able to realign them and put them in braces, although he wasn't sure how much of a blessing that really was.

"How is he?"

Bruce looked over his shoulder, surprised to see the guard hovering close by with curious and somewhat worried eyes. "He's not good, he could be worse. I haven't seen any signs of internal bleeding, organ rupture, or failing systems and body functions." Of course, he hadn't looked very far yet. "It would be helpful if you could tell me exactly how he got his injuries, starting with his hands."

The Jotun knelt on the floor to the right, watching the procedures with careful eyes. "They—it was a group of three younger men, all of them drunk—struck each hand with an iron rod. I stopped them at four blows to the left one and five to the other."

Bruce nodded, processing the information while going through the motions of gathering splints, braces, foam, tape, and anything else he might need to secure the god's fingers for an undetermined amount of time. "Thank you for stopping them. If his hands were worse, I wouldn't have what I need to treat him with me. He'd be stuck with broken bones until I could come back again." Sliding the first splint over Loki's finger, he began to wrap it in gauze and then tape, trying to give it some extra padding. "I don't believe I caught your name, by the way. I'm Dr. Bruce Banner."

"Raghnall Bjordson."

Bruce nodded. "Good to meet you."

They lapsed back into silence, and Bruce placed his full attention on Loki's wellbeing, taking the middle finger into his hand and setting it as quickly as he could. Loki cried out, his body curling as much as it could, his right leg coming up towards his stomach while his left leg remained flat and unmoving.

"I'm sorry, Loki. I know it hurts, but it's over now. I'll put a brace on it and give you some medicine for the pain." Bruce tried to rub Loki's upper arm every chance he got, but given the incessant movement of his hands, that wasn't very often.

Finishing up the second brace, Bruce grabbed a sandwich bag and held it out to Raghnall. "Can you fill this with ice cubes?" Pause. "Can you fill this small pieces of ice that can conform to Loki's injuries?"

Raghnall looked at him for a moment but eventually did take the plastic and started to form small balls of ice inside. Satisfied with how the first hand was looking so far, Bruce picked up the StarkPhone and examined the scan results.

_Nothing showed up, but I'm willing to bed he got at least one head concussion. Hopefully, that's all it is, because I won't be able to get an actual MRI until he's back on Midgard. _Shoving the phone into his pocket, he returned to the injured hand and took the ice bag from Raghnall, carefully placing it on top of the battered extremity.

"Did Thor bring you here?" the guard asked, still watching with rapt attention.

Bruce glanced up, hands flying from place to place unceasingly as he treated the badly beaten mischief maker. "Yes." He leaned over to look at Loki's other hand and carefully picked it up. "I knew Loki beforehand, and it just so happens that I'm also a doctor, so I was the first person Thor came to when he found Loki like this."

Raghnall nodded sharply, his expression contemplative. "It's good that he has you."

Bruce wasn't sure whether it was Loki or Thor the guard considered fortunate, but he didn't ask. Instead, he focused on the new hand, examining it as thoroughly as he could with the dim light. There were no obvious fractures or dislocations, although it was still heavily bruised and swollen, and Bruce had to wonder if that had something to do with the fact that Raghnall stepped in a blow early.

_I won't complain, regardless._

Grabbing another bag, he handed it over to his makeshift assistant and asked for more ice, covering the left hand in the same manner as he had the right. Then he hiked up Loki's tunic and checked the skin beneath, a low whistle escaping him at the sight.

"Oh, boy…"

There was a lot of bruising. No, actually, there wasn't a lot. Rather, there was one giant, purplish-black, tender bruise covering everything from Loki's diaphragm to his hips. Unfortunately, Bruce couldn't do much of anything to treat the bruising, and he wasn't even sure if it was actually that terrible. Perhaps Jotuns simply turned black and purple when they were bruised instead of green or blue or yellow.

"Raghnall, what do you make of this?"

"They punched and kicked him for quite some time." He shrugged his shoulders, hands coming down to rest on his kneecaps. "I was expecting a mark like this."

"So, the exceptionally dark coloring normal, then?"

Raghnall's face scrunched up slightly, and he leaned forwards to get a better look at the marks on Loki's stomach. "It's still pretty bad, but…" he traced his finger lightly along the outside, "…all of this is fairly normal, so it's not as widespread as it looks."

Bruce nodded slowly. "Alright. We'll have to keep an eye out for internal bleeding, but I think he'll be alright." He buried his hands in his armpits, trying to warm up the freezing fingertips. _I'm running out of time. I won't be able to treat him with numb fingers._

Gasping suddenly, Loki started to move and fidget where he lay, sucked back into the realms of consciousness after several minutes of dazed silence. "D… Dr. Banner, how did…?" He coughed, trying to sit up and failing. "How did you know… to come?"

Bruce reached out and adjusted the blanket over Loki's body, silently but effectively ordering him to stay put. "Thor came and got me. Do you remember him visiting you?"

"No… I do not." Loki grit his teeth, and Bruce imagined he was finally coming to grips with the state his body was in. "I… do not remember muth of what… happened today."

"It's alright. Thor said you were pretty out of it."

Frowning, Loki gingerly ran his tongue over his upper lip, his slurred speech making him very aware of a disturbance in his mouth. "I can't feel my lip."

Bruce smiled, moving down towards Loki's legs as he spoke. "Don't worry, it's supposed to be that way. I had to give you stitches." Pushing the loincloth aside, he examined the leg Loki had yet to move, gently pressing on the inside of the thigh and knee.

"S-stop!" Loki's painful cry sent Bruce's hands away immediately, but the injured man still panted and winced. "Whatever… whatever you just did… do not do it again… do not…"

Nodding, Bruce put his hands in his lap, warming them as he contemplated the best way to treat the pulled muscles. Icing it would be easy, and elevation would be difficult but possible. Heat was out of the question unless magic was somehow involved, and rest would rely on visitors not aggravating the wounds.

"What's this?" Bruce looked to the other leg, frowning at the blood that had collected there and lightly fingering the poorly wrapped cut.

"Knife." Raghnall reentered the conversation, following the pattern Bruce had set and slowly forming an ice archway over Loki's left leg. "I think it was meant to be a stab, but Loki moved at the last second and tore himself open pretty badly. I stopped the bleeding, but that's about it."

Loki hissed, a shudder tearing through him as ice continued to encase his body. "I'm fine, Dr. Banner. Don't… don't make a fuss. It'll only athract un… unnecessary attention." His hands twitched slightly, a quiet moan escaping him.

Bruce grabbed another gauze pad and started to clean the cut, softly admonishing the other's protests. "You can't let your body stay in this condition. You have fifteen more days to go, and the longer we wait to treat you, the more dangerous, painful, and damaging it will be."

"I will be fine."

It would have been funny if the situation weren't so serious, the way Loki tried to maintain his godly superiority while trapped in a thoroughly beaten, very mortal body, with a speech impediment to boot. Unfortunately, it wasn't funny because Loki's pride was once again trying to put his health in danger, and he was making no move to stop it. Bruce wasn't about to let him go without treatment, of course, but it certainly wasn't a sign of progress.

"There's nothing wrong with needing some help, Loki."

Crimson hues narrowed into slits, his shoulders lifting from the floor slightly as he made another attempt to sit up. "I do not _need _help, Dr. Banner. I—"

"You need help just like you needed to drink water to keep from passing out. Denial isn't going to make you any less mortal, Loki, and you're only going to hurt yourself more and more." Bruce met the other's eyes, hands still working to clean the blood from the dark blue thigh. "Right?"

Loki glared at him, seething silently.

"Right, Loki?" he pressed.

"I am not a thild, and you need not speak to me as suth." Embarrassed at his inability to create certain sounds, Loki's cheeks became tinged with a faint shade of purple. "Everyone knows that you cannot thange a circumstance through denial."

Bruce nodded in agreement. "I know this is a big change for you, but you have to try and accept it, or you're going to wind up in a lot of trouble." Grabbing another dose of Novocain, he continued. "Hold that thought, I'm going to give you another shot and stitch this up before I lose all the feeling in my fingers."

"Why did you bring those dreadful things?" Loki groused, tensing up despite himself at the sudden pinch and trying to cover it with a wince.

"This is what I used to take away the feeling in your lip. It's temporary—" he set the needle aside and grabbed his sewing kit once more, "—but it'll enable me to give you stitches without you having to feel them."

Loki didn't say anything, and after waiting for the drug to kick in, Bruce started to work his thread through the torn flesh, suddenly realizing he didn't know how much of his visit he had already used up. He had no idea if or when he would be allowed to return again, and from what Steve had told him, Loki was overwhelmed and trying to understand quite a bit of new information. For Loki's sake, he had to try and make the best of every minute he had on Jotunheim.

"So," Bruce started, tying off the fourth stitch and giving his hands a brief warm-up once more. "Steve told me you've seen a lot of stuff here. What's it like?"

Loki glanced at him, cocking his head slightly and trying to move his hand. Coming to a quick halt and grunting loudly, he tried to motion to the pillow beneath his head. "Raghnall, give Dr. Banner my rune. Please."

Bruce blinked, confused.

Raghnall got to his feet and moved towards Loki's head, crouching down and producing a small, smooth stone from the prisoner's pillowcase. "Here." He extended his hand and dropped it into Bruce's cupped hands before returning to his post by the door. "I'm right here if either of you need anything."

Bruce stared at his hands, enthralled with the warmth that radiated from the stone and barely remembering to thank the guard for his assistance. "What on earth…?" he wondered aloud, turning the rock over in his hands and examining the carvings with curious eyes. "This is incredible."

"It is magical." Loki smirked from where he lay. "It is actually quite simple as far as magic is concerned. If I still had my powers, I could create a hundred of those for you without draining very muth energy." His expression soured, head turning to stare at the wall again. "However, as you well know, my magic is sealed. That was a gift from Queen Leiknyrr."

Bruce arched his eyebrows, relinquishing the stone in order to continue his treatment of Loki's leg. "You got a gift from the queen? Did she come to visit you?"

Loki didn't move, his jaw remaining clenched for a few moments before pale lips began to part. "Yes, she came to visit me, and she gave me a ring and that rune." He paused, licking the stitches in his mouth and staring intensely at the wall. "You know who she is, don't you?"

Bruce nodded slowly. "Yes, I believe so. She's your mother, right?"

Loki snorted, and silence reigned between them once more. Bruce watched his face, trying to find any signs that this topic was strictly off limits. He knew Loki wouldn't want to talk about it—Loki didn't want to talk about hardly anything he considered personal—but Bruce didn't know just how much the god wanted to avoid the topic. If at all possible, he was going to press Loki into a corner and see what he could get him to admit to.

"What did the two of you talk about?"

Loki's body shook, a bitter cackle rattling his chest. "Do you mean before or after she abused and humiliated me? She did not come to _talk, _Dr. Banner, she came to make a mockery of a burden she thought she had thrown off long ago." Laughter dissolved into a sigh, and he shut his eyes, keeping his walls up. "We had a battle of wits, if you will, and she discussed the properties of the ring she gave me, which reveals my Jotun form. That is all."

Raising Loki's injured leg slightly, Bruce smeared antibiotic ointment over the wound and started to dress it with gauze. "That's a shame. Did she say why she feels that way about you? Why she left you?"

"Pah." Loki tried to move his hand again and whimpered, no doubt uncomfortable with his inability to fiddle with his hands. "Doctor, one does not simply _ask _a complete stranger such questions."

"Why not?" There was no hesitation, trained hands never ceasing as Bruce finished off the gauze bandage and began to cover it with an elastic, cloth one.

Loki didn't answer.

Bruce glanced up from his work, pinning the bandage in place and taking the rune in his hands once again to warm his frozen extremities. "Loki, do you think you deserve an answer?"

"Of course I do," he snapped, clenching his jaw and glaring at the ceiling.

"Then you know what I'm going to say." Bruce kept his eyes on Loki at all times, watching as the tension fell away from his face, quickly being replaced by something Bruce could only define as pain.

"How does one go about phrasing such a question?" Shaking his head ever-so-slightly, Loki ran his tongue haphazardly over a mouth he couldn't feel. "What sort of conversation do you work that into?"

Bruce smiled, laughing softly. "Loki, you don't always have to have a silver tongue. Sometimes, the best way to approach a problem is tactless and blunt."

"Even so," he replied too quickly, the tension in his neck betraying him, "she may feel she has no obligation to give me answers, in which case the question would be a waste of time."

It was a poor argument, and Bruce dismantled it with ease, waving it off dismissively. "That's not really relevant. You won't know until you ask her, and if the worst thing she can do is refuse to answer, I don't see how you have very much to lose."

Loki fell silent once more, the only sound escaping him being that of his breathing. His hands twitched, the unbroken fingers on each hand fidgeting beneath the bags of ice. Red eyes flickered from one end of the room to the other, eventually landing on the ceiling and staying riveted on one spot.

"Loki… if it's all the same to you, I think I know what the problem is." Bruce picked up some of his equipment and started to pack it, leaving out a few small things he could still use to ease the pain the god was in. "I think you don't want to ask her because you're afraid of the answer."

Snorting, Loki shook his head. "What is there to be afraid of?"

"Confirmation." Bruce started to fill a small, plastic bag with the garbage he had accumulated. "You're afraid she'll confirm everything you hate about being from Jotunheim. That you're a monster, and she left you because she didn't want or love you. Something along those lines, right?"

Loki swallowed hard and bit down on his lower lip, eyes losing their focus before closing entirely, air escaping his nostrils in a slow and steady stream. "You're too nosy, Dr. Banner."

Having cleaned up his equipment, Bruce sat down next to Loki's head and shrugged his shoulders within the other's field of vision. "Maybe so, but I don't think I'm wrong."

Loki offered no response.

"Look… Loki." Bruce sighed softly, rubbing his arms as the cold started to invade the many layers of fabric that enveloped his body. "You don't have to be perfect all the time. I saw it when you invaded Midgard, and I hear it in the stories Thor tells me, and I see it in front of me right now. No matter what you do, whether it's magic, fighting, traveling, behavior, _destroying planet earth, _or anything else you put your mind to, you want to do it perfectly." Pausing, he wet his lips and tried to think of the best way to phrase his advice. "You… will never be perfect, and the sooner you admit that, the soon you can focus on being the best you can be without feeling the need to push yourself to unrealistic extremes." He paused again. "Queen Leiknyrr may confirm what you fear is true, she might debunk it, and she might refuse to answer altogether. But you need to be alright with all three of those."

Loki's body tensed, and Bruce stopped speaking in case the other chose to interject, but after a few seconds, the muscles relaxed. Loki remained silent, and Bruce began to speak once again, hoping the god hadn't shut him out.

"You can't allow your past to define you, Loki. You have to be okay with any answer she could give, not because it's particularly noble or fair or because you like it, but because it doesn't matter anymore. You're allowed to be angry and hurt by whatever she tells you, but there is nothing to fear about your past." Bruce smiled, looking upwards with a reminiscent laugh. "That's one of the best things about the past. You learn from it, and then you get to change the rest of your life for the better."

Once again, Loki was silent, and Bruce was actually starting to feel encouraged by it. He had expected Loki to continually interrupt, insisting that he wasn't afraid and wouldn't be hurt and didn't need to be told he was a perfectionist, but there had been no such objections.

After a few more beats of silence, Loki parted his lips and whispered, "…it is not that simple, Doctor."

Smiling sadly, Bruce nodded his head. "You're right, it's not. It's very hard and very painful, but I know you can do it. You have the willpower, the strength, and the support. All you need now is the notion."

Loki scoffed, opening his mouth to say something but stopping himself short. With a sigh, he relented to the other's words. "Support… you have all supported me, though I do not understand why. I expected it from Thor, but not from you." Then, in a quieter voice. "Any of you."

"I know." Bruce didn't let his smile falter, his hand coming out to pull Loki's hair away from the bandage on his forehead. "I was surprised at Clint and even Tony, but I knew Steve would warm up to you quickly, no pun intended."

The faintest of smiles appeared at the corner of the trickster's mouth. "Unsurprisingly, you know your teammates better than I." He shifted his hand slightly, swallowing the cry of pain that rose in his throat. "Since you seem to insist on me asking questions, you shouldn't mind if I direct one at you. Why did you agree to Thor's plan?"

Bruce inhaled and exhaled in slow succession. "That's a complicated one. I would say first and foremost, you don't really pose a threat to us. Unless we give you total freedom, you really can't do _that _much damage without your magic and immortality. A close second would be that none of us thought your proposed punishment was fair. We're not into torture—some of us have been through quite a bit of it, some of us have even caused it and never want to go back—and without a good reason to refuse, I don't think any of us could just leave you to a fate like that." He shrugged his shoulders. "There are a lot of other, smaller factors, and everyone has their own reasons for doing what they do. I can't speak for all of the Avengers, so you'd have to ask them yourselves if you want to know more."

Loki nodded slowly, turning his head and staring up at Bruce. "And… what of you, Dr. Banner? Why did you offer to have daily sessions with me, knowing I would neither like it nor cooperate?"

At that, Bruce actually laughed. "That was all Thor. I'm not certified as a psychologist, so I told Thor if he really wanted to help you, he should get a professional to do it, and his face just… _crumbled. _He said any other human wouldn't be trustworthy enough, and he was worried that they would use the situation to get revenge of some sort." He shrugged his shoulders, still smiling. "I couldn't say no to that face, and after I brushed up on my psychology skills and actually felt somewhat prepared to give you advice, I was glad I didn't. You're a very interesting person, Loki, world-dominating tendencies aside."

"I'm truly flattered." Loki rolled his eyes, chuckling softly and turning his head back again. "I will think about what you have said, Dr. Banner." He paused then, staring at the ceiling for several minutes before opening his mouth again. "…Thank you."

"You're welcome. I hope it helps."

_Well, that's the understatement of the century._

* * *

A/N: For those of you who were concerned about the story getting sidetracked, I'm happy to tell you that by the end of the next chapter, we will be back in the Avengers Tower! Thanks so much for all of your support thus far, and your reviews are greatly appreciated.


	14. Chapter 14

Warning: Mentions of Infant Mortality and Stillbirth.

* * *

_Ten more days. You're two thirds of the way done with this miserable, frozen rock. Don't overthink things and don't overstep. You can't afford to. _These were the thoughts hammering against the forefront of Loki's brain as he watched the Queen of Jotunheim make her way down the hall. He shifted slightly but was unable to move more than an inch, a grimace twisting his features as pain shot up his left leg and into his stomach.

"You may stay as you are." Leiknyrr placed her hand on the door as if she meant to open it but remained outside, sweeping the room with her eyes before finally meeting Loki's gaze. "How goes your recovery?"

Loki cast her a dark look, ignoring her earlier words and pushing himself into a sitting position he found somewhat comfortable. "I am doing just fine." He looked down at his lap, running a finger from his good hand over the brace encasing its twin. "Dr. Banner did an excellent job."

"Hmm." Leiknyrr arched an eyebrow, looking him over once more before opening the door to the cell and letting herself in. "I trust he did his job well, however, I also trust that your mortal body will not recover as easily as you think it will."

She knelt down and reached out to take his injured hand, but he jerked away. Oddly enough, he found he wasn't entirely angry with her, but he knew his reaction hadn't been controlled by abject fear or repulsion, either. It was more like caution or trepidation, and he avoided her hands in the same way one might avoid the fangs of a venomous serpent.

_I don't know what to believe. Dr. Banner said I should ask my questions directly, but I don't know how. I don't know what I want to say, and I don't want to know what she'll say back. I don't even know if she'll be willing to answer._

Loki wet his lips, trying to return some of his wit to his tongue as he addressed her criticism. "It's not that bad. You should have a little more faith in human resilience."

Leiknyrr chuckled softly, returning to her feet and folding her arms over her stomach. "I don't know what to do with that information, given that it's coming from you." She smirked lightly, amusement and disdain dancing dually in her eyes. "You would know more than most what it is to be whipped by the human race, yet you have nothing but ill words for them at any other time. I wonder which story is the truth."

Letting out a bitter laugh, the god of mischief shook his head. "They are both true, given the right context." It was an obvious cop-out, but he had yet to pick a side and knew he couldn't support one or the other without tripping over himself. "Regardless, my health is not relevant to this conversation. It wouldn't make any difference to you whether I was nearly dead or nearly alive, as I can converse either way. So, what brings you here?"

Remaining silent for several moments, Leiknyrr walked the length of the cell and pressed her toes against the bloodstains, dragging the brown dust across the rocks with a faint smile. "I have come to talk." Her eyes darkened the moment she began to speak. "I want to know what you've learned."

Loki blinked. "What I've…?" He shook his head, confusion creasing his brow. "I do not understand."

"I want to know what you've learned," she repeated. "You've been here for twenty days. You've been treated with kindness and brutality, you've met the old and the young, and you have seen the consequences of your actions as well as validation for the reasons you placed behind your actions. They've all been lined up, set in one time and place for you, so…" she conjured a chair beneath herself, falling back into it as white smoke plumed around the summoned structure. "What have you learned, Loki Laufeyson?"

He bristled, gritting his teeth. "I have learned I still despise both the name of Laufey and the name of Odin." In just a fraction of a moment, heavy fatigue overtook his anger, and the tension fell from his shoulders. "I will admit… I am thinking differently than I was when I arrived here, but I still… I don't know. That is all." He glanced up, toying with the fabric on his lap while he awaited her response.

"I see." Leiknyrr nodded slowly, one hand coming up to trail through her long, yet remarkably untangled hair. "I can understand that. As Queen of Jotunheim, my primary concern is to see to it that you never repeat the actions that landed you in my cells; however, I also realize that a millennia of one idea cannot be undone by thirty days of another."

Loki chuckled, shaking his head and trying to draw his knees to his chest. He was stopped by sudden, stabbing pain and settled for leaning back against the wall instead, suppressing a shudder at the vulnerable feeling it gave him.

"Queen Leiknyrr..." he said after another round of silence. "You baffle me."

"Good." She smirked, resting her chin in her hand and crossing one leg over the other. "You may speak your mind, you know. This contract was created on interrealm politics, not your unpleasant personality and moody disposition."

Loki scowled half-heartedly but considered her offer all the same. _There are many, many things I'd like to tell her, but even if I cannot alter my sentence, much of what I have to say will not serve to endear myself to her. Furthermore, I can't trust that she's telling the truth about the basis of my punishment, and I can't risk a longer sentence. I need to get out of here. _Blowing his bangs out of his eyes, he tried to recall Dr. Banner's advice and put it to good use, his lips slowly parting as words began to form on his tongue.

"Why did you… come and visit me?" He shook his head, unable to comprehend her answer even as the question fell from his own mouth. "Why did you give me the ring and the heat stone? You had no reason to politically—one of the realms involved is powerless against you and the other wouldn't care about something so small—and my abandonment is proof that you feel no emotional attachment toward me. So… why?"

Leiknyrr took a deep breath and slowly let it out, her gaze wandering up to the ceiling and remaining there for a few seconds before falling back down to meet his. "You are my captive, and as such, the weight of your wellbeing and survival is on my shoulders. If something were to go horribly wrong, I would pay the price, which would in turn affect my people. As Queen, I can't allow that to happen. Furthermore… you _are _a Jotun, Loki. I am your Queen, and you are my subject just as much as any other Jotun on this planet. Odin may not have required any level of comfort, but I am obligated to extend the hand of civility to at least some extent."

Loki nodded his head slowly, saying nothing but refusing to let his gaze fall. _I am a subject? You are obligated? You truly feel nothing, despite having conceived, carried, and delivered me, as my mother. Nothing at all. _Pain tore through his right hand, and he curled around the injured limb, cradling it to his chest and cursing his inability to stop fidgeting with his fingers.

Queen Leiknyrr waited for him to collect himself before adding a few statements, her voice growing just a few tones softer yet still detached and cold. "You might find this hard to believe, but I do acknowledge you as my son. I will never deny that we share blood, and regardless of what I may or may not feel for you, I will protect you."

Laughter split the air, dark blue hands pressing against his bruised and broken sides in a self-defeating attempt to take away the pain caused by the spasms. "You will _protect _me? What a disgustingly bold-faced _lie_. I'm here, Leiknyrr, because _you_ _left me_. You left me on a frozen rock in the middle of nowhere during a bloody war with the most powerful army in all the Nine Realms. You knew I would die, but you left me there anyway, because that was what you wanted. Tell me, is _that _what you call protection, _Mother?"_

Silence painted the air between them, Loki's shoulders quaking with each shuddering breath he took. Neither looked away, but neither spoke, the wordless battle giving him the time he desperately needed to collect himself.

_No. _He inhaled slowly, willing his eyes not to burn._ I have nothing to weep over. _Keeping his breaths slow and steady, he worked his hands beneath himself and carefully pushed himself onto his feet, smoothing out his tunic with cautious, somewhat jerky movements.

"Well, Queen Leiknyrr?"

She remained silent for a few more moments before responding. "I never said that I have always acknowledged you as my son." Her voice was even and quiet, heavily controlled and closely guarded. "When you were born, I felt no obligation to protect you. As far as I was concerned, you were a burden that got in the way of my ascension to the throne. However, that was over one thousand years ago, and it is impossible for someone to live such a length of time without changing their ideas, thinking, and feelings at least somewhat."

Incredulous, the trickster shook his head. "So, somewhere along the line you came to the conclusion that you made a mistake by leaving me, and then you proceeded to do nothing about it. Am I to accept that as an answer? Is that supposed to excuse what you did?"

Leiknyrr arched an elegant eyebrow slowly, fingers twirling through a strand of hair that fell over her shoulder. "I never said it was a mistake, either. I have a stronger sense of duty now than I did back then—that is something that came from maturation and increasing responsibilities. There is no guarantee things would have been better if I hadn't left you."

Loki stared at her, speechless and unmoving, heart pounding on the inside of his chest. His brain was buzzing with a swarm of emotions he couldn't quite identify, water stinging his eyes despite every attempt to keep them dry. Battered hands trembled—from rage or fear, he could not tell—and his throat ran dry, silver tongue falling limp against his teeth.

_I don't know what I was expecting. _If Leiknyrr had ever felt any remorse over his abandonment, she would have tried to contact him, plain and simple. She hadn't—over one thousand years passed, and never once had she reached out to him—and the reason she hadn't was because she didn't care. She didn't love him. She never had, and she never would.

"Did that answer your questions, Loki?"

He met her gaze for a brief moment before turning his eyes towards the ground and focusing on the task of lowering himself back onto the floor. "Yes." He carefully eased himself back into a sitting position, sighing at the relief it brought to his weary muscles, and looked up at her with narrowed eyes. "Your answers were perfect."

Smiling, she cocked her head to the side. "I'm glad you think so."

"You don't mind if I ask another, do you?" His wit had abandoned him, confusion clouding his mind and putting simple words on his tongue. "Because I'm curious to know a little more about my heritage. What sort of family are you from, Leiknyrr?"

"Hmm." For a moment, it looked like she was going to refuse, but after about a minute of contemplation, she complied. "I already told you that I am the twelfth daughter of Álmóðr and Mýrún, but I suppose that doesn't mean much to you. To clarify, Álmóðr was a very powerful sorcerer as well as a close companion of the king who reigned before Laufey. Mýrún was from a noble family halfway around the planet—a family well-known for their ability to take a small, broken down town and turn it into a metropolis."

Loki couldn't deny the surprise and impressment he felt upon hearing her words. He had no idea Jotunheim even had social constructs, but if she truly was telling the truth, then there were obviously levels of social standing and nobility. Furthermore she, and by extension he, was very high on that ladder.

"I was their daughter, eighteenth to be born out of twenty-seven children. Mother taught me how to manage wealth and fight with swords and fists. Father taught and guided me in the ways of magic, and he often took me on political trips with him to give me firsthand experience in the field. On my own, I studied and read books until my eyes bled, learned every language and dialect this planet has to offer, committed our history and culture to my memory, and prepared myself for the role I wished to obtain. You, Loki, are my firstborn child, though you now have thirteen younger siblings, and you contain the nobility of both of my parents' bloodlines as well as that of Laufey and his parents."

Nodding slowly, he took the information and began to process it, slowly coming to terms with the position he held by birthright. "Four lines of nobility, then?" It was a distraction from the earlier words that were playing themselves over in his mind, from the part of the conversation where all of his fears had been confirmed. "I received my magic from your side of the family, it seems. What about Laufey? Did Laufey have any magicians in his family?"

Leiknyrr nodded her head slightly. "Some. Laufey himself took an interest in magic, but he did not have the bloodline to support it. He was able to accomplish much, but he could never become an exceptional master because his body, mind, and soul were not engineered for it." Smiling softly, she nodded in the direction of Loki's pillow. "That rune I gave you. You can feel it, can't you? Magic is alive, and you have the ability to sense its presence—it's essence. Laufey could not. There are many, many people who wield magic but never know it as intimately as it is meant to be known. You can feel it because I can, as could my father before me. It is something you were born with."

Loki glanced down at himself, turning his hands over in his lap and mumbling under his breath. "Something I was born with…" He tilted his head again, looking up and meeting her gaze. "What of your other children? Do they also have this gift?"

Leiknyrr nodded her head. "Of course."

"I see." He paused, weaving venom into his tone before he started to speak again. "Did you give birth to thirteen children after me, or did you _keep _thirteen children after me?"

"Neither," she replied coldly. "I had two sons and a daughter, and then I gave birth to a stillborn boy. I had three more girls after that, one of whom fought in the war against Nidavellir and died in battle. I had no further problems until I gave birth to what would have been my twelfth child. He was very sick, and despite all efforts, he died eight days after he was born. I had a daughter and son after him."

Loki frowned in confusion, processing the long list of those alive and dead before questioning the one piece of information that stuck with him the most. "What is a stillborn?"

Leiknyrr glared at first, but as the seconds passed, her scowl melted away into bitter laughter. "No, I suppose an Asgardian would not know such pain." She shook her head. "Stillborn babies are babies who are born dead."

"What?" Loki was unable to keep the word from passing his lips, disbelief contorting his features. "That's impossible. What could harm them before they are even born?"

Leiknyrr shrugged her shoulders, turning her head to look down the hall. "Sometimes they are sick, sometimes they are weak, sometimes the mother gets hurt, and sometimes the baby gets wrapped up in the lifeline and is strangled. Or it could be any number of other things. It's often hard to say." She blinked, setting her jaw and continuing to look towards the exit.

Loki swallowed hard, looking down at his lap silently. On Asgard, such things were unheard of. Babies were vulnerable, yes, but they never died inside of the womb and sickness was extremely rare. To know that other races gave birth to corpses was upsetting and disturbing, to say the least.

_I wonder if Midgard is also plagued with the stillbirth? _He glanced up at Leiknyrr, considering for a moment extending his question to her, but then he decided against it. He could wait until he returned to Midgard and find some books on the subject or ask the doctor if he wanted to know more. _Although, I am curious…_

"Queen Leiknyrr, what was the cause of your stillborn's death?"

It was as if he had flipped a switch and activated every wall she had ever built around herself. He could feel the room go a few degrees colder, and she sat stiffly with squared shoulders and frozen eyes. Loki straightened up and eyed the exit, wondering if he had just made a terrible mistake.

"He was strangled by the lifeline when I was ten months along."

Wetting his lips, he nodded and dropped his gaze to the floor, very aware that he had picked the worst possible question to ask. _But why shouldn't I? She abandoned me to die, why should I feel any sympathy if she lost a child she actually wanted? _He had no answer, but he didn't return to the topic.

"Might I ask one more question?" he ventured, watching her face for any sign that he was making things worse for himself. Then again, if he hadn't already pushed her past the point of no return, he doubted this particular inquiry could make things much worse.

Turning her head slowly, Leiknyrr looked at him and nodded her wordless permission.

Loki cleared his throat, resting his hands in his lap and willing himself not to fiddle with them. "If I decided at some point in the future that I would like to meet my supposed siblings, would such a meeting be a possibility?"

"It would depend." She rose to her feet, the chair crumbling to dust as she left it behind. "If you were here with ill intentions, or if I had reason to suspect that you were going to harm them, then no. However, if you came here under civil terms—perhaps with an escort?—then I don't see why there would be a problem with such an arrangement." There was a pause, her brows arching sharply as she appraised the frost giant on the floor. "Assuming, of course, that they want to see you."

Loki said nothing. If there was one thing he had learned since his arrival, it was that he had hurt a lot of Jotuns and couldn't expect any of them to be forgiving. Of course, he had known that was the case from the beginning, but it was different now. Now those Jotuns might actually be worth something more than the ice they were standing on, and their forgiveness might be something he actually wanted to obtain.

"I noticed you've taken to one of the little ones that comes and visits. Klaufi, I believe his name is." Leiknyrr paused, giving him a pointed look and continuing in a low tone of thinly veiled anger. "Did you know that your youngest brother is about his age?"

Upon hearing the word, Loki opened his mouth to deny their relation before remembering that she was talking about one of his real, biological siblings. "Yesterday I didn't know they existed. Why would I know their ages?"

Leiknyrr gazed out the hall again, continuing as though he hadn't said a word. "He began asking if he could sleep in my room about three years ago. He says he doesn't want the Asgardians to get him."

He realized she was trying to make a point—a passive-aggressive one that annoyed him, to be perfectly honest—and simply nodded his head in understanding. "Yes, I've heard that you tell your children stories about Jotuniri-eating Asgardians."

Black strands swung outward slightly as she gave her head a sharp turn. "He wasn't afraid of Asgardians until they tried to destroy his home. Now I can't get him to so much as look at the sky without having to explain that, no, the falling star he just saw was not the Bifrost sending Asgardians to kill us."

Silence permeated the cell again, both of them averting their eyes in unison. Loki wanted to apologize, and yet he didn't. He was sorry, and yet he wasn't. He felt guilty, but he also felt angry, and above all, he felt an overwhelming sense of confusion that prevented him from picking a team and sticking with it.

"What would you like me to do? Come read him a bedtime story?" Scarlet hues narrowed into slits, his good fist clenching by his side. "I'm in prison. This is what you chose as my punishment, and I'm receiving it without fail. What else can I do? What else would you _have _me do?" He tried to control his volume, physically hunching his shoulders in an attempt to keep his voice inside himself.

Leiknyrr stared, saying nothing for several seconds before slowly walking over to the door and raising the latch. "I don't want you to _do _anything, Loki. I simply want you to know exactly what it is you have already done."

"All too well, Queen Leiknyrr." He spat the words, venom spraying from his lips with a vengeance he had tried too long to contain. "All too well."

Trying to keep in mind all that Bruce had said, Loki watched his mother leave, blood pounding against his eardrums as his pulse ran higher and higher. Sapphire lips parted with faint quivers, the doctor's advice running through the front of his mind on a continuous loop.

_"Sometimes, the best way to approach a problem is tactless and blunt."_

He inhaled slowly and tried to speak, but nothing came out. Expelling the air in his lungs, he sucked in once again and made another attempt, determined to ask her before she got too far away.

_Just ask. Just open your mouth and ask. Don't think about it, don't think, just ask. All you have to do is open your mouth and say—_

"Do you regret it?"

Loki's heart leapt into his throat as soon as he spoke, every fiber in his being regretting the decision to speak. Leiknyrr turned to face him, and his blood ran cold when their eyes met. He felt like his chest was going to burst or he was going to be sick—or perhaps both at the same time.

_This is why I never speak without thinking. I shouldn't have said anything._

"Do I regret what?" She paused, folding her arms over her chest. "Leaving you?"

Loki gave a jerky nod, swallowing thickly and failing to find his voice.

Leiknyrr watched him for a long time, her arms slowly falling down to rest on either side of her body. "Do you regret what you've done?" Her tone was curious and softer than before.

Blinking, Loki wet his lips and struggled to word an answer, taking Bruce's advice a second time and trying to let his thoughts just come out through his mouth. "I… I honestly don't know yet. I'm… confused."

Leiknyrr nodded slowly. "Then I cannot tell you." There was no anger in her voice, and he thought for a moment he saw a hint of sadness in her eyes. Too soon, she was turning around again and walking down the hall, and Loki didn't have another question on hand to stop her.

_She cannot tell me… but it sounds like she has made a definite decision. Perhaps she wants me to be certain of where I stand before she reveals where she is standing herself?_

Loki sighed, lowering himself onto his mat with a pained grunt and staring up at the ceiling. His body ached, he was tired, and despite the fact that he had adjusted to the Jotun weather almost entirely, he was cold.

_I don't know what to think. Klaufi, and Bjolan, and Lini, and everyone else who lost someone during the attack—my attack. I know I hurt them, I know I killed their families and neighbors, but they're Jotuns. What was I supposed to do? Let Laufey wage war? Raghnall said himself that war caused horrible situations where everyone was equally at fault. I can't be blamed for that!_

But that didn't sound right. It sounded like something he would say to Thor or something he would slip into an interrogation to make himself seem less detestable, but it wasn't the truth.

_What if I do regret what I did? What am I supposed to do about it now? I'm going back to Midgard in ten days, and they've already claimed my abilities and manual labor for who knows how long. I can't change anything here, and I certainly can't undo what I've already done._

Glancing at the lockbox stuffed with letters, he pondered the conversation he once had with the great Captain America about the past. When he tried to use Steve's faults and mistakes against him, he had accepted his failures with grace.

_"It changes the future."_

Loki sighed, returning his gaze to the ceiling and allowing his eyes to drift shut. _If S.H.I.E.L.D. and Odin have their way, I don't have a future to change. I'm never going to be a free man again. Although, I suppose I could still help this realm under contract, just as I am doing with Midgard._

_"That depends on the choices you make. It can do you good or harm. Sometimes, it doesn't do anything for you, but it changes the world for someone else."_

Could he really change the world for another living being just by admitting to a lack of judgment? If he had asked himself that question a month or so ago, the answer would have been no, but now things were different. If—and it was a huge if—but if he finally came to the conclusion that was guilty, he would need to do something about it. It was difficult to do much of anything in his position, but he was also a very resourceful person.

_I could serve as a liaison between Midgard and Jotunheim. I could use Thor to influence Asgard and create some semblance of peace between the two realms. I could greatly improve my magic if I—_

He buried his face in his pillow, sighing loudly as his brain scattered the thoughts across his mindscape, leaving them in a cluttered disarray he wasn't sure he had the energy to clean up.

_Do I regret what I've done? Do you regret what you've done, Queen Leiknyrr?_

He hoped her answer was a yes.

He hoped, but he doubted.

* * *

"Loki, wake up." Shake, shake. "Come on, it's time to go."

His brain was still fogged up with sleep, but it still managed to lock onto the words being spoken, and he forced himself into a state of consciousness without another moment's hesitation.

"Make haste, Loki. The Avengers await us back on Earth."

Loki opened his eyes and was greeted by the sight of Thor and Steve kneeling over him, both smiling and holding a bag containing the items he had collected during his stay. For a moment, his own lips twitched into the faintest of smiles, and he sat up with a quiet grunt.

"We let you sleep as long as we could," Steve started, "but you're all packed up, and we knew you wouldn't want to stay any longer than necessary. We're supposed to go talk to Queen Leiknyrr, and then we can head home, no strings attached."

Inhaling slowly, Loki looked around the cell, examining the walls that had limited his movement and stolen his freedom for the past thirty days. Fingers twitched against the frayed fabric of his blanket, dried bloodstains scratching against his palms.

"Loki."

Startling, he gave the older god a questioning look.

Thor offered a soft smile. "It's over. It truly is."

Loki dropped his gaze to himself for a moment, and then suddenly leapt to his feet, wincing at the pain in his only somewhat healed left leg. "If you have everything then let's go." Leaning down, he grabbed onto Thor's cape and folded it over his arms, walking towards the open door with an undeniable eagerness in his steps.

"Loki," the god of thunder laughed, "that is old and dirty. Why don't you leave it here? I can always ask mother to make me a new one."

Loki didn't look back, his grip tightening on the fabric in his hands. "It can be mended." Refusing to say another word on the subject, he walked over the threshold and took his first step as a free man, striding down the hall with an enthusiasm that his battered body did not support.

"Slow down!" Steve quickly caught up with him, chuckling softly. "It won't do you much good getting out of prison if you're only going to wind up confined to a hospital bed later today."

Loki scowled. "No, I suppose it wouldn't." Still, his steps only slowed somewhat, his eyes darting from wall to wall in search of an ambush or change of heart or anything else that could send him back to his cell. "Where is Raghnall? I didn't see him by the gate."

"He returned to his home," Thor replied. "I imagine he trusted us to get you to the throne room unharmed, and after spending thirty days straight guarding you, I'm sure his eagerness to leave rivalled your own."

There was the faintest of grins on the trickster's lips. "Yes, I suppose so." Looking down at his feet, he watched them fall one after the other, savoring the way the scenery changed as he walked. "Do you have any idea how long this meeting will take?"

Steve shook his head. "Nope. She said she just had a question to ask you, but there were no other details."

Loki nodded slowly, lips pursing as he contemplated what the queen might have in store for him. _Does she still want to know if I regret my attack on Jotunheim? _He shifted his train of thought, turning his head to look at Thor.

"Klaufi and Bjolan. How are they?"

The blonde smiled, blue eyes sparkling. "They are both doing well, given their situation. I helped Bjolan build a small shack, and they've slowly been adding furniture and some recovered belongings to it." Thor chuckled then, shaking his head. "Bjolan told me to inform you that he doesn't hate you as much as he thought he would, and he hopes you feel better soon."

Loki once again allowed the other's words to bring a smile to his face, vaguely aware that his right hand was hurting more than usual. _My body isn't used to me actually moving and getting a strong blood flow. _But it only egged him on, loincloth barely covering his indecency as he half ran, half walked towards the palace in the distance.

"Aren't you cold?" Steve increased his speed to match, wrapping his arms around himself as if to make a point, white steam billowing from his lips every few seconds.

Loki shook his head. "My body was made for this weather, and I've grown accustomed to it since I arrived." Since he arrived, thirty days ago, the thirty days that were now over.

It was _over._

He rushed up the stairs, fighting the urge to take them two at a time and closely watching the path ahead of him for any sign of his destination. Slowing down, he allowed Thor to take the lead and guide them to where the throne room was, trying to calm his heart and keep the grin off of his face.

Just a little ways down the first hall, Steve leaned over and whispered to him. "Are you really alright? If—"

"I am fine, Captain." Loki gave him a pointed look, making it excruciatingly clear that he was in no mood to talk about his sentence. He wanted to return to Midgard as soon as possible, nothing more and nothing less. "I am just fine."

Steve nodded in understanding and leaned back into his own personal space, turning his gaze forward with his head held high and shoulders squared. Loki watched him as he walked, noting the comfortable and confident way Steve carried himself and briefly wondering how the soldier felt about the planet he was standing on.

Thor stopped outside of two massive, double doors made entirely of ice and spoke to one of the guards standing directly outside. "We're here to finalize the end of Loki's sentence with Queen Leiknyrr."

Nodding, the guard took the news to the post next to his and, after a moment or two, the gates swung inwards. Thor smiled briefly and glanced over his shoulder, waving Loki and Steve along before stepping into the large room and approaching the throne.

Loki swallowed as he stepped over the threshold, curiosity falling short as his eyes found themselves glued to Leiknyrr's form at all times. She was as elegant as ever, delicate folds of dark blue fabric wandering down off of her chair and onto the floor, a small crown adorning her head.

"Loki Laufeyson." Leiknyrr spoke crisply and clearly, waiting until Loki took a step forward to continue. "You have remained in the custody of Jotunheim for the allotted thirty days, as was negotiated with Odin Allfather, King of the Nine Realms. Your crimes against Jotunheim have been paid back in full, and any attempts to extend your sentence should be disregarded. If any person in any of the Nine Realms demands restitution from you based on what you have done to Jotunheim in the past, that person is acting outside of the law of Jotunheim and Asgard alike. Do you understand?"

Loki nodded once, deeply. "Yes, Queen Leiknyrr."

"Good." She stood up then, walking down the steps and stopping a foot or so away from her firstborn son. "It is customary on Jotunheim to kneel when you're standing before the throne."

Steve and Thor both dropped to one knee immediately, showing their respect without hesitation, but Loki took a moment to stare her down. He knew this was a test—her little way of seeing if he had really learned his lesson—but he had no desire to get Jotunheim on his bad side again, and he would be lying if he said he didn't have at least a small amount of respect for the queen.

Sighing softly, he dropped down to one knee and bowed his head, wincing slightly at the pain his position caused. "I apologize. This is the first time I've been to Jotunheim on civil terms."

Leiknyrr didn't acknowledge the apology. Instead, she fired off the question he had been waiting for, her voice a blend of tones he couldn't quite decipher. "Loki, do you regret what you've done to Jotunheim?"

Loki inhaled slowly, staring down at the ice and allowing the question to burrow itself in his mind. He had thought long and hard, agonizing every night as he tossed around the concepts he had been taught since childhood, lining them up with the ones he was just now starting to learn and trying to decide which one was the truth. He had come to a conclusion, and he wasn't sure if it was the right one, but if she truly wanted the truth, than this was all he could give her at the moment.

"While I am still considering the weight of my actions here, I can say with certainty that I regret my attack on Jotunheim, which I carried out by opening the Bifrost and keeping it so." He paused, wetting his lips before he went on. "I do not regret tricking and murdering King Laufey, for I have not yet decided whether or not he was a good king who deserved his throne. However, I do regret the fact that his murder sent Jotunheim into disarray until leadership was shifted into your hands. To put it briefly, yes, I do regret what I did."

Silence came from the woman before him, and after two minutes of nothing, he slowly raised his head and sought her eyes. He found them, and with the rubies came a sad sort of smile and a quiet confession.

"As do I."

Loki's eyes widened, chest tightening the moment the words reached his ears. Swallowing hard, he tried to steady himself before rising to his feet and pulling on the ring attached to his finger. "I, ah… I suppose I should return this," he said, for lack of a better subject change.

"Keep it." Leiknyrr nodded her head towards the object. "It was made for you. It knows only you, can be worn by only you, and will accept only you. Keeping it locked away in my chambers will make useless scrap of it."

Loki looked down again and released his own hand, lifting his eyes and scanning her face, half expecting to find deceit or cruel humor there. He found nothing. She was as formal and regal as ever, but she was far from cold or angry.

Turning, Leiknyrr waved a hand and started walking towards her throne again. "Loki Laufeyson, Thor Odinson, and Steve Rogers, the Captain of America, you are dismissed."

Loki also turned, facing his escorts as they got to their feet and quickly pushing between them to get to the exit. He heard their footsteps falling behind him, but he didn't slow down or turn to look over his shoulder.

_"I do regret what I did."_

_"As do I."_

Her subtle confession answered some of his questions, but it left hundreds more in its wake. If he was not certain of his desire to return before, he certainly was now, because if she truly did regret what she did, he wanted to know _why. _He wanted to know why she never did anything about it, whether or not Laufey knew that Loki of Asgard was his son, and why none of his siblings ever came to see him, if they even knew he existed.

But he knew she did regret, and that would have to suffice for now. Regardless of the reason, regardless of how long it took her to reach a point of remorse, right now she regretted leaving him to die that night. She regretted it, and that was _something. _It was a start, and despite his efforts to keep his emotions in the back of his mind, he couldn't help the feeling of worth that came over him.

"You seem happy."

Loki startled slightly, pulled out of his thoughts by Steve's playful jab. His expression immediately twisted into one of heavy sarcasm. "I happen to enjoy being outside of a jail cell. Is it all that unusual for me to be happy about this dreadful circumstance coming to an end?"

Steve smiled, eyes sparkling mischievously. "I never said it was unusual. I just said you seem happy, and you do."

Rolling his eyes, Loki continued walking towards the Bifrost site, aware of Thor's quickly drooping mood and knowing it was due to the fact that Loki had begun to ignore him. Loki didn't care about that, though. He was going back to the tower—back to civilization and decent living conditions—and he couldn't be happier.

Except, perhaps, if he escaped to a distant realm and avoided his jailers altogether.

But this would do for now.

"Heimdall!" Thor raised Mjolnir towards the sky. "Take us to Midgard!"

Seconds later, the trio was awash in vibrant colors and blinding lights, the sensation of solid ground disappearing beneath their feet. For a moment, Loki thought about who he would have to interact with, and he wondered what the rest of the Avengers would think of his blue skin. He didn't contemplate it for very long, however. It was too late to think about things like that, and quite honestly, he was too tired to care.

_I do believe this is the first time something else has taken precedence over my race. Curious._

Both feet landed on warm concrete, the heat feeling mildly uncomfortable after thirty days of ice and snow. He could feel the wind even before the Bifrost was finished materializing them, and he figured they were on the large balcony attached to the side of the Tower. Loki reveled in the familiarity. He was back on Midgard. It was over.

"I'm going to get dinner started," Steve said, shedding his backpack and walking towards the doors that lead into the building. He stopped halfway there to address the group of four standing in the shade. "If you guys could help Loki get situated, I'd really appreciate it." Turning to wave, Steve smiled and continued walking towards the doors. "I'll see you soon, Loki."

The trickster nodded in response, picking up the fallen bag and extending his hand to receive the other one from Thor. "If you wouldn't mind…" He left the ending open, but his tone made it very apparent that their spell of civility was over. Thor was no longer a lifeline, and therefore, Loki was freed from the obligation of communicating with his not brother.

Thor realized this as well, and with the eyes of a kicked puppy, he handed over the bag and tried to force a smile. "It is good to have you back, Loki." Then he cleared his throat and walked towards the building, offering a brief explanation up to his teammates as he went. "I believe I will assist Captain Rogers in the kitchen this eve."

_Well, four people are certainly much easier to handle at once than six. Still, I'm out of practice. _Loki put his bags down shortly after Thor had gone, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the line-up with narrowed eyes. "Well? Are you going to say something, or are you just going to stand there like a swarm of wingless jaknas?"

Tony shook his head at that, finally speaking. "I'm sorry, a swarm of what?"

Loki rolled his eyes with a contemptuous sigh. "Jaknas. They are some of the dumbest sprites Vanaheim has to offer, easily identified by their bulging eyes and inability to fly in a straight line." His couldn't think of a simpler way to put it, so he figured his brief description would have to suffice unless one of them was going to somehow get their hands on a field journal or sketch. He dismissed the topic of fairies with a shrug, looking at the three other people present. "I expected to see you, Dr. Banner, but you two are certainly a surprise."

Clint shrugged his shoulders, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I came up for dinner and found Tony waiting for you. I had nothing better to do, so I stuck around." He glanced to his right. "I don't know about Natasha."

"I have to verify Dr. Banner's report on your physical, mental, and emotional condition." She folded her arms over her chest, her expression as unreadable as ever. "That's all."

Loki cracked a little grin, tempted to press them for details but choosing to abandon the topic in favor of something much more interesting—something everyone had avoided mentioning thus far. "Are you quite certain S.H.I.E.L.D. will take you seriously when you tell them I arrived looking like this?"

For a moment, no one said anything, but then Tony shrugged and tossed out his opinion, as he was apt to do. "You're from another planet. What are they going to say? Aliens are green not blue?"

Bruce entered the conversation before Loki could respond, gesturing to the appearance in question as he spoke. "I think before we talk about skin color, we should focus on your injuries. If we hurry, we can get you fixed up before it's time to eat."

Loki balked at the idea. "I assure you, it isn't as bad as it looks."

Bruce shook his head. "I didn't have the right equipment with me when I came to Jotunheim, and there's a long list of internal injuries that could slowly be developing as a result of that. Besides," he continued with a knowing smile, "the sooner we fill out that report, the sooner S.H.I.E.L.D. will leave you alone."

Loki considered the man's words for a moment before reluctantly nodding his head and bending down to pick up his bags. "Very well." He slowly started walking towards the building, tacking on a recommendation of his own. "However, unless you want your fingers to freeze off, you might want to let me change forms first."

Tony fell in step beside the god, looking him over curiously. "Is your skin really that cold?"

"Why don't you touch it and find out?" Loki rolled his eyes, sarcasm thick in his voice.

He didn't actually expect Tony to grab his arm.

The inventor retracted his hand immediately, letting out a loud cry of pain and a long string of profanities meant to ease the burn. He held his hand close to himself and bent over it, gritting his teeth.

Loki blinked. "I wasn't serious, Anthony!" His scolding and mildly frustrated tone effectively covered up that fact that he was actually quite amused by the other's plight.

"It was for science," Tony grumbled, shaking his hand before returning it to its original position. "I should have you come down to the lab some time. I bet there are a lot of useful things hidden in that skin… hoo boy…"

Bruce shook his head with a soft, exasperated sigh. "I'll wrap that up before I start checking Loki." Taking the lead, he got the group moving again and stepped through the doors, crossing the living area before turning down the hall to their right with Loki, Tony, and Natasha on his heels.

"Isn't Robin Hood coming with us?" Tony turned his head over his shoulder to give Natasha a grin.

She only arched an eyebrow, ever silent, watching the trio from the back.

_It must be unnerving, living with her. Even now, I can feel her eyes on me, watching my every move. It's disturbing and… disconcerting, to say the least. _For a moment, he considered swinging the two sacks over his shoulders to protect his back, but then came to the conclusion that it would be too obvious. _If Barton has orders not to kill me, she likely does, too. I should be safe for now._

Loki followed Bruce and Tony onto the elevator, watching in curiosity as the metal around his hands started to mist up. It seemed Midgard was only able to avoid the consequences of his temperature if he didn't make physical contact and didn't stop moving. Of course, even if he wanted to walk in circles around the elevator, it was so small and crowded that he suspected it wouldn't do much good.

"If you break my elevator, I'm sending you the bill."

Frowning, the god of mischief turned his head and stared. "I have heard this word before. I believe the Captain mentioned it." He shook his head, squinting slightly. "What is a bill?"

They arrived at their floor and stepped off, Tony and Loki walking shoulder to shoulder as the discussion continued.

"People pay bills with money to even out a debt. For example, a phone bill. Every—"

"Not a good example, Stark," Natasha interjected, still trailing behind them.

Tony let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his head. "Good point. Um… alright, so you can get something called a credit card, which is not money, but it can still be used to pay for things. Say you go to the store and you buy some clothing, and then you go over to another place and get some food, and lastly you buy a fuzzy blanket because fuzzy blankets are awesome. The credit card company—the place that gave you your credit card—pays all of those stores, but then you have to pay the credit card company back. So, the credit card people send you a bill—a piece of paper saying what you owe and why—in the mail, and then you have to write a check, which is another kind of money, and send it back. Make sense?"

Loki blinked, nodding his head slowly. "I think so. I am not familiar with most of the terms you used, but the basic concept is clear to me."

Bruce stopped when they came to a side hall, turning around with a small smile. "I'll get you a book on economics. Right now, though, you need to go to your room and change forms."

Suspicion darkened the god's expression, and he didn't hesitate to point out the glaring problem with Bruce's statement. "But this is not my floor."

"You're right." Bruce nodded calmly. "Do you remember wrecking your last room?"

Tony held up a finger and pushed into the conversation. "You owe me for that, too."

"That's not really the point here, Tony." Bruce shook his head, chuckling softly as he continued to explain. "Anyway, the damage was pretty bad, and we haven't had the time to get it all cleaned up and fixed, so we moved you to this floor."

Loki didn't move, scrutinizing the man before him and clutching his bags ever tighter. He was gone for a month, and yet they didn't have the time to fix a single bedroom? It didn't sound right. It sounded like a trap.

"You two go, and we'll meet you down there." Natasha stepped into the side hall and motioned for Loki to follow her, her expression a silent warning of what would happen if he didn't. "Your room is this way."

It definitely sounded like a trap, and he hesitated for several moments before slowly walking after her, gaze snapping from one side of the hall to the other. _They moved me closer to where they all live. That's just foolishness, they should want me isolated. Besides, even if my room was destroyed, why should that matter? I am a prisoner, after all. They should feel no qualms about putting me in a room I destroyed of my own volition. This isn't right._

"Where are you taking me?" Loki snapped, his feet still moving reluctantly over the black marble floors.

Natasha didn't so much as glance at him. "I already told you."

Loki snarled, fists clenching at his sides and sending painful sparks through his hands and forearms. "I think you and I both know there is no logical basis for this new rooming rearrangement, and I would appreciate it if you would tell me where it is I am actually going."

She didn't say a word, still walking at the same pace, red waves bouncing against her shoulders in perfect rhythm. It was as if he hadn't said a word.

"Here." She allowed the new door to scan her retina before grabbing the handle and pulling it open. "Knock when you're done."

Loki gave her a hard, unwavering stare, standing just a foot away with both of his bags and Thor's cape bundled in his arms. Slowly, he let his gaze drift into the room, which appeared to be exactly what she said it was, and then pulled it back to her face.

"I'm not your therapist, Loki. You can talk to Bruce about your trust issues later. Go." Her tone was monotonous but deadly and sent an unexpected chill down his spine.

Still cautious, he turned towards the room and stepped inside, jumping slightly when the door shut and locked behind him. Despite its abnormality, it really did look like a normal bedroom. It was practically identical to the room he'd had before, although the color scheme and wood stain were darker. His books were all on their shelves, his bed was made up nicely, and a stack of recently cleaned clothing was folded atop the dresser.

_I don't understand._

Surrendering his bags to the forces of gravity, he let them topple onto the floor and sat down with a heavy sigh, grabbing the ring on his finger and closing his eyes. Even if it didn't make sense, he couldn't worry about it right now. Queen Leiknyrr said he would have to focus all of his thoughts and energy on removing the ring, and getting back to normal was at the top of priorities.

_I should still be able to sense the ring's magic. Once I find that, I just need to will it off._

Straightening up slightly, Loki crossed his legs and started to level out his breathing, focusing solely on the ring in his hand. Background noises created by the ever-running machinery in Stark's tower faded to a quiet hum and then disappeared altogether. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of his closed lids and began to paint images across his mindscape, thoughts and sensations and pictures of the ring loosening and coming off flooding his senses. His legs and backside started to numb, the energy travelling to his fingertips and coating his hands and forearms in hypersensitive skin.

_I want you to come off of my finger. You need to come off of my finger. This is not an option, it is simply something that you must do. I am taking you off of my finger. Let go of my finger. Loosen up so I can take you off. _Those thoughts and others that ran along a similar vein ran in a continuous loop beneath the repetitive mental picture of the ring falling off.

Suddenly, Loki felt something shift in the energy and opened his eyes, seeing that his hands had come apart and the ring was in his palm. Letting out a heavy sigh, he laid down on the floor and started to breathe again, his body returning the energy to its proper places before standing up and stashing the ring in his nightstand drawer. Then he stepped back and looked down at himself, a broad, genuine smile parting his lips as his skin faded into his preferred hue.

_Finally…_

Shifting feet reminded him that he was not alone, and he moved quickly towards the dresser, pulling out a pair of jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. It was plain, but it was so much better than anything he'd worn during captivity, and since he hadn't had a chance to shower yet, there wasn't any point in putting on a clean outfit that he liked.

_It's over. _He still couldn't get his head all the way around it. Midgard put him under many restrictions, but at least he got to pick out his own clothes and had a small amount of privacy and knew he was going to get three square meals a day. _It's over. I don't ever have to go back, Queen Leiknyrr said so. It's official. Odin can't make me go, Thor can't make me go, S.H.I.E.L.D. can't make me go, even Leiknyrr herself can't make me go._

Loki bit down on his lip, unable to stop himself from smiling but making an attempt regardless. Walking over to his new bookshelf, he grabbed the first book he saw and then returned to the door. He knocked, as she had requested, and a moment later the lock was sliding.

Natasha arched an eyebrow when she saw him. "Why did you bring a book?"

He didn't restrain the grin this time, hoping she would assume it was his usual, sarcastic superiority. "Because I want to."

There was no other reason. He brought the book because he wanted to. Because he could now. Because, in his new perspective, he understood the Avengers had given him several luxuries he hadn't even realized existed until they were taken from him. Whether that would be their downfall or not, he couldn't yet say, but he didn't much care, either.

Because Loki felt freer than he had in a very long time, and that was something.

That was something.


	15. Chapter 15

"I'm not so sure this is a good idea…"

"It probably isn't, but that's never stopped me before." Tony responded without hesitation, rubbing idly at the bandage on his hand as he watched Loki through the two-way mirror. "He needs to relax, and you were the one who said heat would be good for him."

Bruce adjusted his glasses, letting out a soft sigh and turning to face Tony fully. "He can get heat from a rice pack while he lays in bed. He's tired, Tony. He's had an incredibly long month."

Tony was ten steps ahead both mentally and physically, his feet already carrying him towards the door that connected the two rooms. "Which is exactly why I should do it now. I'll take him and get him all relaxed, and then I'll send him straight to bed. Tomorrow morning, he'll wake up refreshed and renewed and whatever else makes you want to let me do this."

Bruce met his gaze evenly, disapproval evident in his eyes. "Tony—"

"It's really not a bad idea." Natasha pushed into the conversation, her gaze never leaving the god on the examination table in the other room. "I'd like to go through his belongings before he has a chance to hide anything, so I'd appreciate the distraction. As long as you don't antagonize him, Stark."

"Who me?" Tony placed a hand over his heart and gave the assassin a wounded expression. It faded quickly, however, and was replaced with a sort of sincerity that did not come naturally to the billionaire. "Out of all of us, the only people who might be able to relate to what Loki went through on Jotunheim are Clint, myself, and you, Natasha. Clint hates his guts, and you're not exactly Dr. Phil, so that leaves me."

Bruce snorted, still uncomfortable with the idea. "You're no more of a Dr. Phil than she is."

"I have lots of money, I wear suits, and I'm a man. That's three points for me that she doesn't have." Not giving either of them a chance to respond, he grabbed onto the handle and let himself into the examination room.

Loki's head snapped up immediately, one hand stopping halfway to his ribcage while the other hung in midair with an x-ray dangling from its fingertips. He said nothing but slowly arched his brows, looking the inventor up and down suspiciously.

"Hey, Reindeer Games." Tony jerked his hand over his shoulder, thumb pointing towards the door. "Come on."

Loki only stared, hands dropping to the table and fidgeting against the paper cover. "Where are you taking me?"

"Follow me and find out." Tony turned away from the god and made his way towards the exit. "That wasn't a suggestion, by the way. I'm still the rule-maker in this outfit."

There was another moment of hesitation—or perhaps defiance, it was hard to tell with Loki—and then Tony was being tailed out of the room and into the hallway. Slipping his hands into his pockets, the inventor made a conscious effort to leave his back exposed, the action serving as both a test and a statement. On one hand, he was tempting Loki with an opportunity to attack and seeing whether or not he would take it. On the other hand, he was reminding Loki that he wasn't afraid to fight the trickster one on one.

Thankfully, Loki was cautious for a megalomaniacal psychopath.

"Does Dr. Banner know about this?"

Tony laughed. "What are you going to do if he doesn't?"

"I'll tell him, of course."

Turning his head to look over his shoulder, the inventor smirked. "Tell him what? That I tried to take you somewhere? You don't know where I'm taking you or why, and if I was taking your somewhere you didn't want to go, you wouldn't have the right to refuse. So, what part of that makes you think Bruce is gonna protect you from a late-night stroll?"

It was clear that Loki was beginning to understand his situation, if the twitching in his fingers was anything to go by, but Tony let him squirm a little while longer. The trickster had gotten too comfortable, too fast, and it wouldn't end well for anyone if he kept up this façade of control.

"Can you tell me what the secrecy is for?" Loki asked, folding his arms over his stomach and glancing around the hall with cautious eyes. "If I have no right to decline, what damage is there in telling me?"

Tony snorted softly, shaking his head. "Ever heard of a surprise, Rudolph? I'm not gonna skin you alive or anything, so just roll with it."

"Just…?" Loki's face twisted with bewilderment, but he ceased to question the topic, trying to get information on another matter instead. "What is an olf?"

"Huh?"

Loki's eyes narrowed just slightly, and Tony got a feeling the god thought he was being mocked. "Just now, you said I was a rude olf. I want to know what an olf is."

Confusion quickly melted away into understanding and then laughter. "Rudolph, not rude olf." He shook his head, stopping at the door to his destination. "There's a kid's story about a red-nosed reindeer named Rudolph. Everyone thinks he's weird because of his nose, but he ends up saving Christmas with his weirdness, and then everyone loves him."

Loki frowned, still missing the connection between himself and the fairytale fawn, but Tony didn't offer any further explanation. After all, he did have an actual reason or bringing the god down here, and they were both tired, so he didn't want to waste any more time.

Opening the door, the billionaire stepped inside and motioned for the prisoner to follow, crossing the room until they were past the swimming pool and standing in front of a bubbling hot tub.

"Ta-da!" Tony spread his arms, fully expecting Loki to have no idea what he was looking at. "I thought since you did time on the galaxy's biggest ice cube, you'd like a little something to warm you up."

But Loki was tense, his weight shifted onto his better leg as he took a half step back. "Did Director Fury order you to do this?" he asked, glancing around the room with an air of calculated terror.

Tony blinked. "What?"

"I completed my time on Jotunheim, he should have no reason to—"

"Shakespeare, it's a hot tub."

"It's _boiling_, Anthony." Loki glared, holding a hand to his side. "I'm not an idiot."

"Could've fooled me," the inventor droned with a quick eye-roll. "There are jets inside of the tub that shoot out streams of water. It's perfectly safe. Here, I'll prove it." He tugged off his shirt and tossed it aside, sending the rest of his clothes after it a moment later and easing himself into the hot water with a contented sigh. "See? Safe. Safe and very, very comfortable."

Loki watched him a moment more and then approached the hole in the ground, carefully sticking his fingers in and testing the temperature for himself. He stared at the water then, occasionally glancing up at Tony's face, and after about three minutes of heavy contemplation, he followed in the inventor's footsteps.

_This is what I really wanted to see. Think you could turn around, Reindeer Games?_

Loki did not heed the unspoken request, but as he pulled his shirt over his head, the inventor found it didn't matter. He could see the bruises on Loki's side and stomach just as clearly as he had expected to see them on his back.

_That's why Bruce wanted the x-rays so badly. _Tony openly grimaced at the sick shade of yellow painting the god's abdomen, his mind wandering to his own experience with torture and the long hours spent coughing up water on the floor of a cave in Afghanistan.

"As if you look any better."

Tony jumped slightly at the sudden voice, drawing himself out of his thoughts and humming vacantly. "Hmm? Oh."

Still frowning, the naked foreigner approached the hot tub and carefully lowered himself into the corner opposite of Tony, exhaling slowly as he did. "Speaking of, what happened to the force field that protected you during my previous visit to Midgard?"

"I had it removed." Tony tapped the center of his chest, the knotted flesh too numb to feel his fingertips. "It wasn't a force field, though. It was an electromagnet that went through my sternum and in to my heart."

Loki frowned. "Why would you ever want or need such a contraption?"

"I got blown up in another country, and the shrapnel from the bomb got in my chest. Without the electromagnet, I would have died, but—" he gave the scar another tap and shrugged, "—that's a thing of the past. I'll let you read my autobiography sometime if you want to know more. No, I'm just kidding. I don't have an autobiography, but if I did, I'd let you read it."

A smirk curled the corner of the god's mouth. "Is it wise to be telling your enemy so much about yourself? About where your weaknesses lie?"

"That's actually something we need to talk about." Tony latched onto the opening, spreading his arms on the smooth concrete and extending his feet to rest on the seat across from him. "I know you're excited to be back and all—"

"Excited is hardly the word I would use."

"—but don't get confused about your situation here. You're a war criminal, and while we're not going to try and turn you into a pancake like they did on Jotunheim, that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want."

Loki scowled. "I haven't attempted to do any such thing."

"Yet." Tony bounced his finger against his temple. "While you were gone, you only had contact with Steve, Bruce, and Thor. Steve has a heart of gold, Bruce is your therapist, and Thor is your doting not-brother who believes he's your brother and would rope the moon for you in a heartbeat. I just want to make sure that you haven't forgotten the other three members of this team, along with Director Eyepatch, and the fact that we're all chasing our own agendas here."

There were a few beats of silence, and then Loki started to chuckle, shaking his head as a patronizing tone invaded his voice. "Oh, believe me, I have not forgotten. I am very well aware that you desire my absence."

Tony interrupted him once again. "See, that's where you've got this backwards." He shook his head, leaning forward slightly and lowering his arms into the tumbling water. "We don't want you _gone, _we want you _active. _You've been sitting in a cell for thirty days, and like I said, you've been doing a lot of talking with the three people in this building who will go the easiest on you. Don't be surprised when you're pulled out onto the streets tomorrow and expected to pick up where you left off."

Loki glanced down at his stomach. "But—"

"See?" Tony pointed his finger again. "That's what I'm talking about. You got some bruises, pal. You pulled a muscle in your leg, got a blow to the head, and a couple broken fingers. That's the worst of it, and while the others might be more sympathetic, the majority isn't. You can work a little banged up—we all have. Heck, the reason most of us had to work on Manhattan banged up is _because _of you. We had to clean up your mess after we risked our necks stopping the invasion, and we weren't handing out water bottles, I can tell you that."

Green eyes flickered downward, settling on the surface of the water and lingering there, the expression on Loki's face turning thoughtful and somewhat disturbed. Tony watched in silence, wondering what kinds of thoughts were going through the trickster's head.

"Well, at least it's believable."

Tony stared the other down. "So, you understand your situation here?"

Loki nodded slowly, seeming somewhat absentminded. "Yes, I understand. What I do not understand is the purpose of the… hot tub. Why did you bring me here?"

Tony shrugged. "You're tense, I'm tense, and it's a great way to unwind. Plus, Bruce said the heat would be good for your muscles." He sighed, shifting his weight slightly and sliding down until the water was up to his neck. "I thought we might as well kill two birds with one stone."

"Even though you just told me I'm nothing more than an asset to you?"

"Well, between you and me, I'm not a fan of captive situations." He shrugged his shoulders. "But if you want another believable answer, assuming I understand your definition of believable, then think of it this way: what good is a rusty tool?"

Loki thought about that for a moment, nodding his head as the words sank in. Then he looked around the perimeter of the tub, shifting a bit to make himself more comfortable. "I am… appreciative of this… gesture."

It was probably as close to a thank you as the god could get at this point.

"Sure thing, Reindeer Games."

_He still has the Three Musketeers doting on him, but hopefully we'll be able to balance it out and keep him from trying anything stupid. Hopefully._

* * *

"Levi."

Loki turned his head to look over his shoulder, silently prompting further explanation from the ginger, a gray t-shirt still hanging from his hands.

"Break time." Natasha held out a bottle of water and gestured to the couch along the far wall. "Sit down, drink some water, and try to eat something. I don't think either of us want a repeat of your first day on the job."

Loki scowled at the memory, pulling himself to his feet and taking the drink without a single word. Slowly, he made his way over to the sofa she had suggested and sat down, pressing an arm across his abdomen with a quiet hiss.

_Even the simplest of movements hurt, but if Dr. Banner didn't find anything concerning in the electronic rays, then it must just be the bruises. Thankfully, they have me working inside today, otherwise—_

No. He couldn't get comfortable again.

_At any given moment, I could be dragged out of this situation and thrown into another, and if I'm not prepared, it'll be Jotunheim all over again._ Sweat slid down the back of his neck, his hand quickly coming up to wipe away the sensation of filth it left behind. _I need to focus on my goals, the main one being escape. There's no point in trying to trick Natasha or Clint—probably not Tony, either—but I'll still need to show them a more trustworthy side in the event that whoever I do trick goes to them for advice. I have to swing everyone in my favor—_he caught and held Natasha's gaze for a half of a second before returning to his water and the sights of the city—_everyone._

It would take time, but Loki had always been a rather patient individual. Bruce and Steve were already sympathetic to an extent, and Thor was bent on obtaining his brother's love now more than ever. For the moment, the team was split down the middle, but it needed better than that. At the very least, he needed three for, two neutral, and one against. Anything less than that would be too risky, and he wasn't going back to his cell.

He refused.

"Levi!"

Raising his head, he scanned the area and looked for the owner of the enthusiastic and familiar voice, a small smile breaching his lips when he saw her. "Hello, Brianna."

"Levi, you came back!" She darted across the room, reaching for him with arms that were painted with bruises and scrapes.

"Brianna, wait!" Loki thrust his arms out, grabbing her around the waist and forcing her to come to a stop. "Brianna, you can't jump on me. I… had a bit of an accident while I was on vacation."

Two wide eyes blinked at him, her little hands fisting his shirt as she fidgeted in his hold. "Is that why you were gone so long?"

Loki nodded, smiling tightly as he surveyed the rest of her body and found more minor injuries throughout. "Yes, that's why."

Brianna nodded, ducking under his arm and crawling onto the couch, where she proceeded to make herself comfortable. "I thought you were never gonna come back."

Wetting his lips, he looked the girl over once more and reached out to brush his fingers across one of the larger, fresher scrapes on her knee. "Brianna, what happened to you? Where did all of these marks come from?"

Brianna dragged her arm across her mouth, shrugging her shoulders. "Just can't stay outta trouble, I guess." She kicked her legs, watching them fall back down against the couch with a somewhat vacant look in her eyes. "I like to look around for toys and clothes and food in the older buildings. Canned stuff lasts a long time, yanno, and I really love canned peaches."

Loki frowned, not following her train of thought at all.

"It's just… some of the buildings aren't so safe. Lots of glass and falling, um, lights and stuff. Sometimes I just fall down, and I get scraped up." She turned slightly, lifting her foot up and placing it on Loki's lap. "I broke my flip-flop. See? That's why I came here."

Loki examined the foot for a moment, finishing off his water before speaking again. "I know where to get you new shoes, but I have a question for you first. Your mother should be home from the hospital by now, so why isn't she the one looking for food and clothing?"

Brianna looked up at him, and he knew immediately that he had said something wrong.

"…Mommy didn't come back from the hospital..."

He had no immediate reaction, and it took several seconds and one slow inhale to get him talking again. "Her injuries were fatal, then?"

Brianna dropped her chin to her chest and shook her head back and forth, shoulders quivering as she began to cry. "Mommy… didn't want to come back…" She sniffed, wiping her face with the back of her arm once more. "It's my fault… I wasn't supposed to let the doctors see her, and… and now she owes a lot of money, and she d-doesn't…"

Loki swallowed, trying to muster up enough cold-heartedness to find himself annoyed. It didn't work, and with a quiet sigh of resignation, he placed his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her head back. "What do you say we find you some footwear, hmm?"

Sniffing, she began to nod and got to her feet when he did. Loki grabbed two bottles of water from a nearby cooler, handing one to his little companion before walking out of the room and down the hall towards the shoes.

It was interesting, this little house. It looked like a normal living space from the outside, but inside it was filled with clothing and shoes and food. Loki had spent the entire morning and afternoon going through large black bags, sorting out the contents and sending it out to the various designated rooms.

"Here." He stepped into the shoe room and made his way to the far corner, pulling two plastic bins away from the walls. "These should fit you."

Brianna plopped down, rubbing her eyes and reaching out to sift through the footwear. It didn't take her very long to find a pair of moderately worn, bright pink sandals with yellow flowers on the straps, and she quickly put them on and walked around the room in them to see how they fit.

"I think those will do just fine. Don't you?"

Brianna stopped next to him and looked up, nodding silently. She hadn't said a word since she told him that her mother was in debt, and Loki wasn't entirely sure what to do with that. She wasn't his responsibility, and it wasn't his fault that her mother had left, but he couldn't help wondering what would happen if she was alone.

"Well, now that we have that settled, I can get back to work while you stay on the couch." He turned towards the exit and started walking, motioning for her to follow him. "I'll have to find somewhere to take you. What happened to the neighbors you were staying with?"

"They moved. They didn't know…" she trailed off, going quiet for a moment before bouncing to life a second later. "Levi, can I help you work?"

"Why would you want to do a thing like that?" he questioned, kneeling down in front of the next bag and pulling out the first article of clothing. "It's a rather boring job."

Brianna took a big gulp of her water and then trotted over to him, grabbing the next piece of clothing and looking to him for guidance. "I want to help. How do I do this?"

"Well…" Loki glanced around the room and sighed, holding out his hand to take the shirt. "All of the bins are labelled, so I'll fold the clothing and tell you which bin to put it in. Your job will be taking it to the right bin and making sure it doesn't come unfolded. Alright?"

Brianna nodded and bounced on her feet, watching as Loki checked the tag and folded the purple t-shirt, holding it out to her with a simple order.

"This goes in Girls 6/7."

She grabbed it from him and started to walk around the room, completely oblivious to the fact that he was watching her every move.

_I've always thought humans to be fragile, but it takes a lot of strength to smile in a situation such as hers. She is a warrior in her own right, for certain. _Frowning slightly, he picked up the gray shirt from before and started to fold it. _Just like Jotunheim. _

Even though he was struggling to accept the idea of Jotunheim being a civilization rather than a glorified iceberg, he knew he was seeing the same sort of thing on Midgard and Jotunheim alike. His perceptions of them hadn't been accurate, although it really shouldn't have surprised him. After all, his perception of himself was faulty for over one thousand years, so how could he trust anything he had learned about the world around him? He was foolish to believe that Odin had lied only about his true heritage.

_"You were raised as a hero, only to find out that you were really a monster."_

Raghnall had coined a phrase that suited Loki's mindset perfectly, at the time, but if he questioned how much of his upbringing truly was a lie, then he would have to question whether or not Jotuns were monsters at all. He would have to question whether or not Asgardians were heroes.

"Levi, are you okay?"

Shaking his head, he cleared away the thoughts and quickly regained awareness of his situation, handing the shirt in his hands to his little helper. "I was lost in thought, that's all. This goes in the Men's Large bin."

Brianna took the article into her hands and bounded off again, leaving Loki to figure out how much he had done while he was thinking as well as what pile he wanted to brave next.

"She likes you."

Loki exhaled sharply, not turning his head towards the assassin. "She's lonely. She'll cling to whoever lets her." He dragged another trash bag towards himself, ripping it open around the top and peering inside.

"She likes you." Natasha put her hands on her hips and surveyed the room. "We'll be leaving in about an hour. You managed to get a lot done."

Loki hummed in agreement, nodding his head. "Here, Brianna, this goes in the 4T bin." He handed it off and continued. "So, why are you here if it's not time to leave yet?"

"I'm never far away to begin with." She held his gaze for a moment and then leaned over, grabbing a few articles and walking around the room as she spoke. "I came to see how you were doing, and you seem unsettled."

He scoffed. "Am I supposed to be enjoying this?"

"You look uncomfortable, not displeased." Natasha picked up a couple pairs of jeans and checked their tags before dropping them into the appropriate bins one by one. "If there's something on your mind, you should talk to Bruce."

Loki said nothing, once again shifting into autopilot as his thoughts took off. _I've finally managed to get Bruce away from the topic of Asgard. Why would I bring it back up?_

Ever since his return, the sessions with Dr. Banner had consisted mostly of discussion regarding Jotunheim. His experiences there, his physical health, his mental health, his relationship with his guard, how things went when he interacted with his mother, and so on and so forth. It was a break from the constant guard he had placed around the topic of his distant past, and while Asgard was beginning to rear its ugly head again, he was in no way eager to breach the topic with his makeshift therapist.

_What I've already told him has enough lies in it without me adding more. If I get too far in, he'll start to notice inconsistencies, or worse, he'll ask Thor for confirmation and then he won't believe the parts that actually are true. Not to mention, Thor will begin to question Baldur's death, and depending on what he finds…_

"Brianna, come here for a moment." Loki beckoned her with his finger, lowering his hands into his lap when she approached and continuing in a softer tone. "You should talk to Miss Natasha about your current… situation."

Brianna took one look at the assassin and shook her head, taking a step back.

"Now, Brianna," he chided. "You can't continue to live on the streets, or you're going to wind up very sick, just like your mother. Miss Natasha can help you find a place to stay permanently, but you have to explain what happened first, or she won't be able to help you."

Natasha crouched down beside him at this point, draping her arms over her legs and giving the girl a warm smile. "I know it's scary to ask a stranger for help, but we're here to make things a little bit better for everyone. It's our job. You can trust us to do our job, right?"

There was another moment of hesitation, and then Brianna started to nod, mumbling under her breath. "I guess…"

"Good." Loki stood up with a stack of shorts in his arms. "We're going to be leaving shortly, so the two of you can talk while I finish up a few more bags. Alright?"

"Alright." In two steps, she had her arms wrapped around his waist, head nestling against his bruised stomach and forcing a gasp from his lips. "Bye, Levi."

Grimacing, he pat her on the head and carefully detached her body from his. "Goodbye, Brianna." He waved and watched her leave, waiting until the duo was out of sight to fall back to the floor and resume his work.

_"You were raised as a hero, only to find out that you were really a monster."_

Exploring Jotunheim was only half of the puzzle. He knew that—truly, he did—and yet he couldn't see a safe way to talk about Asgard without incriminating himself. The Avengers already had a long list of reasons not to trust him, and if he wanted to escape, he needed that list to get shorter. His past would almost definitely serve to make it longer.

_"Baldur was shot and killed with mistletoe… we were never able to track them down... We all went to Midgard… telling every living thing to weep… but there was one who would not…"_

But the story was only half true, and that meant no matter what Bruce asked him about, if it fell on the timeline somewhere after Baldur's death, it would have lies underscoring it all. Loki may have been the god of lies, but disjointed stories spread out over who knew how many years was a little too much for even him to handle. He was bound to slip up sooner or later, and Bruce would be looking for it.

_It's already on the table, though, I can't take that back. I could tell him the truth, but that wouldn't improve my situation at all, and it's not as if the truth will fall in line with the history books, so he might not believe me anyway._

Of course, there was Thor to worry about as well. If Thor believed him, that would surely be the end of his compassion, and if he didn't, Loki would look more suspicious than ever. Telling the truth seemed to end badly no matter which way the situation played out, but he knew he couldn't avoid the topic forever. There was no given end to his sentence—assuming they ever intended to release him at all—and one could only dodge questions for so many years.

_Still, no need to rush. If he doesn't bring it up, I won't either._

Natasha knew, though. She knew, and she had reasons to use it against him.

_But I shouldn't assume. If he doesn't bring it up, I won't either._

Hands stopped at the bottom of the bag, finding plastic instead of cloth and removing themselves to delve into the next sack in line. His broken fingers were objecting to all of the activity they had seen, and a painful imprint of Brianna's head was still burning against his lower right side. To top it all off, his mind was beginning to scramble itself again, thoughts flying in every direction with no order or purpose whatsoever, just as it had when he found himself confronted with new truths on Jotunheim.

_If he doesn't bring it up, I won't either._

* * *

Loki tossed another book onto his steadily growing pile and let out a sigh, staring up at the ceiling and pleading with his mortal form to send a wave of fatigue over him and put him out of his misery. He had heard Tony use the term 'too tired to sleep' before, but he had never imagined it would be this frustrating.

Standing up, he walked over to the table where his aqua colored robot was sitting and turned it on with the push of a button. It was a curious little thing—a gift from Steve that heated water for tea—but he very much enjoyed its qualities.

Sighing, he grabbed a teabag and popped it into one of the two ceramic mugs he had on hand, blank eyes watching as the water started to trickle into the cup. Honestly, he was starting to wish Tony would burst through the door with his minibar and throw another random party. It would be a nightmare in the morning, but if the god could drink himself into unconsciousness, then it would all be worth it.

_I've got too much on my mind, that's the problem._

His detainment on Jotunheim had ended almost three weeks ago, and while he hadn't noticed anything particularly suspicious upon his immediate return, the past few days had brought a certain unease into the tower. Steve didn't smile as much, and Tony was either dead silent or rambling nonstop. Clint seemed touchier and more short-tempered, though that might have been due their general distaste for each other, and even Natasha had lost her professional edge a time or two. Bruce was the only one who seemed to be somewhat normal, and Loki wasn't sure how Thor was doing because he hadn't seen him lately.

Still, that was four out of six behaving abnormally, and considering the fact that his fate was in their hands, he didn't like not knowing the cause.

_As if they needed to give me something else to think about._

Eighteen days since his return. Seventeen hours spent talking with Bruce. Sixteen hours spent avoiding the topic of Asgard, Frigga, Odin, Thor, Baldur, and anything else that fell into similar categories. Eight hours spent on the creation of false stories and occurrences if only because he couldn't think of anything else to say. Two hours spent lapsing into the same silence he had given the older male when he first arrived over two months ago. Countless, innumerable hours spent wrestling with himself over whether or not it was even worth it; whether or not he truly had a reason to hide his faults any longer.

_I tried to destroy Jotunheim, I tried to take over Midgard, I've killed hundreds if not thousands of people, destroyed millions of dollars of property and landscape—what are a few misdeeds when compared to that?_

Too much. Even if those truths about himself were ancient history, they were condemning enough to cause problems if they were brought to the attention of his current enemies. It could be the drop that made the cup run over, and the mercy of his human detainers was bound to reach its limit sooner or later.

_"Odin wasn't going to execute you."_

Yet another thing that lingered in his mind on and off. If Odin wasn't going to execute him, but Thor saw the need to intervene, then Loki could only imagine what his adoptive father had initially planned for him. Growing up, Loki had heard horror stories about what happened to traitors and kings of rivalling nations, but he had never imagined Odin turning such a harsh hand towards him. Even after he knew the truth, Odin was so adamant that Loki truly was his son that it hadn't occurred to him to fear harsh punishment from the king.

_It appears I was wrong about that, too. Huzzah._

Sighing, he grabbed his drink and stirred in some sugar, looking around the room in an attempt to find something that would occupy his mind for a little while longer. His calligraphy set was sitting on the shelf, but his broken fingers prevented him from using it, and he had already passed four hours of the night reading, so books weren't going to do it. There had to be something else.

Emerald hues came to rest on the dresser, his lips curling up at the corners just slightly.

_The ring._

Bruce had once suggested Loki use the relic on a daily basis to try and get more comfortable in his Jotun skin, but he had quickly shot the idea down. He was willing to admit there were some faults in his judgement as far as Jotunheim was concerned, but he was still a far cry from wearing his heritage with pride.

_But the ring has magical properties. I could feel it when I took it off the first time. Perhaps…_

Loki opened the top drawer, sifting through the contents until he found the ring and pulling it out slowly. His fingertips immediately turned blue, and the shade quickly spread to the rest of his body, the temperature of the room dropping a handful of degrees.

_If I can get used to finding and manipulating magic pulses again, perhaps I can find out where Odin hid the seals. Of course, even then it would be hard to break them with such limited resources, but it wouldn't be entirely impossible._

Loki returned to his bed and lay down, placing a finger on either side of the ring and closing his eyes. His intention was to remove the ring through concentrated mental strength; however, it was at this moment that the fatigue he had been aching for all night long decided to grace him with its presence. His eyelids grew heavy, and with the steady thrum of magic pulsating beneath his fingertips, the idea of staying awake grew less and less enticing.

_I wonder… if the cold… is making me tired… or if… I'm just…_

He was asleep before he could finish the thought.


	16. Chapter 16

"Loki, we need to talk."

"Oh, how I despise those words. Coming from you, especially."

Thor didn't react to the harsh words, choosing instead to let himself in and take a look around. He was unsurprised to find the room in an immaculate state of organization and cleanliness, and the stack of books by the door gave the impression that his brother was still enjoying his old hobbies. Everything was so familiar, so similar to how things used to be. For a split second, it actually felt like everything was normal again.

But it wasn't, and Thor knew he wouldn't get any sort of greeting or invitation from his brother, so he helped himself to a chair and started to explain the situation that had sent him to the trickster's room.

"Look here." He pulled a large, flat device from his jacket and began playing a video that he hoped would help him explain the situation. "This is called a News Broadcast. It is showing us what is currently happening within the borders of the Midgardian country known as Norway."

Loki watched him with cautious eyes, moving closer to the table but not sitting down. Hesitant and suspicious, he turned his attention to the screen and watched it for several moments, his brow furrowing more with each passing second. "Infidels. They cannot begin to fathom what they are aspiring to be." Pause. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Because their arrogance and their strength come from the same source." Thor took the pad back and changed the image on the screen to display a three dimensional scan of a fragmented, engraved rod. "They cut this out of a tree trunk before committing the atrocities you just saw on the news. It is Asgardian in nature."

Loki arched a brow, several questions written across his face.

"It has runes." Thor cleared his throat, gesturing to the image again. "I can tell they are magical in nature, but I have been unable to figure out more than a few words. I cannot think of anyone who would better know how to decipher this."

Loki remained silent, his expression making it clear he had not yet heard what he wanted.

Thor sighed in response, shaking his head and turning to look out the bedroom window. "I have no pride amongst allies, Loki, but I cannot speak for my comrades, especially in this particular situation. They will not view you in the same light as I, so do not push them. I know the Man of Iron has already warned you to this affect, but it seems you have not taken his words to heart. You would do well to remedy that." Shifting his eyes back to his brother's face, he finally conceded. "We need your help."

Smirking, the god of mischief reached out and took the tablet from Thor, staring at it for a few minutes before handing it back. "I can't see entire phrases in this image. If you want me to help, I'll need to get my hands on a replica." He clasped his hands together behind his back. "Your _comrades_ must also understand that this is only one part of the staff, which means the information I find will be limited. I cannot read what is not there."

Thor nodded, getting to his feet. "I assumed as much."

Without waiting any longer, he threw the door open and stepped out, starting to walk. He knew Loki would follow him for the sake of curiosity, if nothing else. Magic was his passion—his first and only love—and seeing as he spent the last two months without it, there was no doubt in Thor's mind that Loki would accept the job.

Less than ten seconds later, he was proven right, the younger god's footfalls sounding out behind him as he continued to make his way down the hall. For a moment, Thor considered changing the topic to something more casual, but their relationship seemed to go smoothest when it was purely professional, so he changed his mind rather quickly.

"Fury is going to oversee your work, and there will be someone in the room with you at all times to ensure you don't cause any unnecessary trouble." He glanced over his shoulder. "Understood?"

Loki chuckled, a wry smile twisting his lips. "You don't waste any time getting down to business, do you?" He sped up and fell in step beside the older god, grinning. "I like this."

Thor cast a warning look in his brother's direction for what must have been the thirtieth time. "Do not mistake their need of your skills for lenience, Loki."

"Tell me, _Odinson, _what will they do to me if I don't behave?"

Moving suddenly, Thor grabbed Loki's arm and swung around to stand in his way, taking the bony shoulders in his hands and meeting the other's gaze evenly. "If you do not cooperate willingly, then they will beat you into submission."

"You—"

"And I will allow it." Thor gave him a shake, keeping the younger god's mortality in mind as he gripped the other's frame. "People have died, Loki. People are still dying, and _suffering _today. I love you—"

"Don't—"

"I _love _you, Loki, but I will protect this world from your schemes as well as those of others. If you choose to work against me and suffer as consequence… so be it." It burned his throat, his tongue, his lips to say those words, but he knew it would be worse to leave it unsaid. To leave it confirmed by actions that would, without proper context, come off as uncaring and cold.

Loki stared for a few seconds and then smiled, eyes glimmering mischievously. "Finally putting on your adult trousers, I see."

Thor said nothing, released the frame beneath his hands, and started to walk once again.

_Loki, please try to cooperate. This team is giving you a chance—a chance our own father would not offer. Please… for your sake… just try… make it work…_

* * *

"Oh, good, our interpreter is here."

Loki ignored the billionaire and looked around the room, both eyes immediately locking onto the object of interest sitting in the center of a very large, round table. "It's a replica, yes?"

"Yup."

Loki exhaled loudly, already trying to throw together certain terms and phrases as he pulled the rod towards himself, turning it over in his hands delicately. "Good."

"And why is that?" Fury's voice came from behind, the dark figure appearing in Loki's right peripheral half a second later. "Personally, I'd like to have real one here with us. Then we could skip this whole step, and you'd be back in your cell drinking tea."

The Director's casual use of the term put the slightest of frowns on the god's face, but he concealed it with a guise of focus, running his finger over one mark in particular. "It's good because the original would have inflicted some unpleasant symptoms and side effects on anyone who tried to wield it." He pointed to the top of the rod. "This indicates mass violence, city-wide at the very least. Some of these symbols are typically associated with rage, and there's a variety of terms associated with bloodshed."

Tony approached the table, dropping into one of the available swivel chairs. "Associated?"

"Magic is both a science and a language. I can get a general idea at a glance, but I'll need time and instruments to get an exact translation, so what I just told you is a vague message of associated terms and images." He glanced up briefly, meeting Fury's only visible eye. "I'll need a pen and paper, Director."

There was a pause, and then Fury pulled a fountain pen from his jacket. "Stark, get some paper. Loki, don't keep me waiting."

Loki swallowed a sarcastic remark and returned his gaze to the rod, looking it over a few more times and trying to decipher more of the basics.

_Rage… hatred… strength… power… wrath… it's complex and very old… much older than Thor and I. It was intended for warriors, so the chances of it being a sorcerer's private creation are slim. Oh? What's this?_

He was vaguely aware of a paper pad being placed nearby, and he quickly snatched up the offered pen, scrawling down notes and words with symbols and question marks scattered throughout, lines connecting one thing to the next and then again.

_We have half of a date here, and it looks like… two thousand years, give or take no more than a century. The rest of its creation is probably cataloged on the top piece, so I won't get much more out of this as far as its beginnings are concerned. Unfortunately, warnings would most likely be placed at the end, so I probably won't find much there, either._

He pulled the first piece of paper from the tablet and scratched the word 'origins' across the top, setting it aside and starting on a fresh page.

_Strength. It's most useful asset is strength, which falls in line with the idea of it belonging to a warrior. In two places, it says ofridr bati… hostility advantage. So, the rage is supposed to cloud a sense of morals and ethics, enabling the warrior to take the strength offered by the staff and fight without restraint. _

"Director, do you have a list of crimes committed in the area between the forest and the city of Oslo?" Loki's gaze left the staff only briefly, flickering over to his writing hand before shifting back to the rod.

"Yeah. Why?"

"I'd like to take a look at them as soon as possible. They may have done more damage than we're aware of. Thor, I want the moving picture screen with the News Broadcast as well, and don't wander too far. I may have need of you." He leaned back in his chair, gesturing to the tabletop. "I don't have much so far, but I do know this. Its main objective is to enrage the holder and give them immense physical strength. This combination is valuable in battle, so it was probably made in a time of war, which means I'll need some history books. It's roughly two thousand years old, so it is about one thousand years before my time, and there's no indication on the staff itself as to when it arrived on Midgard." Claiming the small screen from Thor's hands, he leaned forward and started to examine the staff again. "I'm afraid that's all I have for the moment. If you want more, you'll just have to be patient."

Tony frowned, leaning against the table and looking over Loki's shoulder. "Those trees are ancient, though. They date back much further than two thousand years."

Loki let out a sharp sigh. "Magic, Tony." He pulled out a new piece of paper and started sketching an illustration. "If I used magic turn a seed into a fully grown tree at the snap of my fingers, and then I asked you how old it is, you would never suspect, suggest, or believe that it was only thirty seconds old. This staff is very well made, so if its creator says it is two thousand years old, then the trees must be the ones lying to you." With that, he buried himself in his thoughts again, vaguely aware of Tony mumbling something under his breath.

Loki listened to the device on the table, scanning his notes and looking for connections between the reporter's words and his own deductions.

"...safety perimeter, in an attempt to stop the growing violence. The writing has left twenty injured, three in critical condition. Reports indicate that a group of about a dozen was led by this man and woman, and while their motives were unclear, their message was hauntingly spelled out on the streets of Oslo."

The god's face once again twisted into a scowl at the outrageous claim on the pavement, but he pushed aside those thoughts and focused instead on the report. "They haven't killed many people yet. That could be because they haven't had the chance, or it could be because one fragment isn't enough for them to lose their conscience completely."

Tony, once again pushing himself into the prisoner's study space, put his chin in his hands and gave the rod a little flick. "Well, we know they had a chance to kill because they injured. What made them stop?"

"Retreat, probably. As I said, this staff was designed for war, meaning you destroy everything in sight _and _range. If your enemy retreats, then you destroy their supplies and remove their advantages before continuing the hunt, so they could have stopped short of killing just because they were more inclined to boast on the blacktop and light some houses on fire. Then again, it could just be that the single fragment isn't enough. Or it could be something else entirely." He shrugged his shoulders, starting a new page for notes about the runes on the first and second lines. "Time will tell."

"Loki, I have found history books." Thor spoke up from where he sat at the computer desk. "According to the World Wide Web, there are many of them currently at the library located a few blocks away. Would you like me to get them, or should I stay here a while longer?"

Tony raised his hand briefly, standing up and crossing the room to the computer. "Just let me print the list, and I'll go get them. You stay here in case there's some voodoo thing he needs you to do."

_I need peace and quiet. One of you, go already!_

Trying to push the commotion from his mind, he started to write out literal translations of each individual rune, looking for any double meanings or undertones the spell may have had hidden within the phrases. _Aldrnari… dreyri_... _raudr… _

"Loki."

Heaving a sigh, the younger god turned to look with disdain in his eyes. "What is it now?"

Thor only watched him for a moment, but then he wet his lips and started speaking, increasing in speed the further he got. "You… have not spoken to me… since we returned from Jotunheim, and I… I haven't had a chance to ask how you are. I barely see you, and the others tell me you are doing well, but I would much rather hear it with my own ears and see you say it with my own eyes. I know you bear much resentment towards me, Loki, but can you grant me a little peace of mind? How are you? Truly, how are you?"

Loki didn't say anything for several seconds, and when his lips finally did start to move, they struggled to stay in control of the trickster's words. "I don't understand why my well-being is weighing on your mind. If you would just cast out this silly concept of brotherhood, you would feel much better." He swallowed thickly, feigning irritation.

"Then do not tell me as a brother. Tell me as a friend—as a fellow foreigner, and a fellow prince. Just… please. I won't ask again after this." Thor watched him, eyes wide and shining with hope that perhaps once, just once, his beloved baby brother would reach out to him.

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, exhaling slowly and pushing his chair away from the table. "Thor…" he met the god's eyes unwaveringly, fighting the urge to smack the dopey look off of his face, "…I am doing fine. You and I both know things are much better than they could have been, and I feel fine, so stop worrying. You're worse than Queen Frigga."

Thor held Loki's gaze, nodding slightly, and two minutes passed in complete silence before he finally looked away. Loki looked away as well and resumed his studies, stillness settling over the room like a blanket.

_Leidr… storradr… eiga afl… eiga hraustligr…_

* * *

"Here."

Loki startled, looking up from his work and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His vision slowly cleared, revealing Natasha not only as the speaker but as someone who was standing there with a steaming mug in her outstretched hand, as well.

"What is it?" the god questioned, taking the cup carefully and assessing the brown liquid inside. It looked like tea, but the smell was too different for it to be the same drink, and the color was slightly off.

"It's coffee. Has a bitter taste, but I added some sugar and cream." She gestured towards his increasingly incoherent notes. "It will help you stay awake. Keep your mind running."

Blinking, he looked from the drink to her face and then back again, raising it to his lips and taking a hesitant sip. His face twisted up immediately, the bitter kick unexpected despite her warning, but as the liquid settled in his stomach, he found that the taste was half tolerable.

"It will take some adjusting, but I shall give it a chance." He paused. "Thank you."

"Yup." Natasha looked over his shoulder, scanning the cluttered table and grabbing one of the nearly finished translations. "So, magic is really this complicated?"

Loki nodded. "On Asgard, magic is a science. You have zoology, biology, chemistry, physics—we have magic." He smiled slightly, pointing to a few of the symbols on the page she had selected. "We use runes instead of equations, and when we mix chemicals we get potions and spells rather than medicine and reactions. However, I will say that magic is much more alive than your sciences. It's more… intimate, for lack of a better word." Taking another sip and cringing a little bit less, he penned another note and turned the sheet in front of him on its side. "If you want to give that to the director, that's what the first three lines mean. You have the four through six page in your hand, which I will have completed in about twenty minutes. Have we found anything on the location of the real staff?"

The ex-assassin gave a sharp nod. "Rogers, Stark, and Clint headed out just a couple of hours ago to follow a lead, and Thor is on call if they need backup. You're stuck with me and Bruce." She gave a light smile, leaning back against the table.

"Bruce and I."

She rolled her eyes. "You're stuck with Bruce and I."

He couldn't stay irritated for very long, his scowl giving way to a mischievous smirk and a chuckle. Not that he didn't enjoy being their enemy, but sometimes he missed his childish pranks and annoying but harmless wits. He hadn't been a boy in centuries, and he often wondered when exactly it was he let his mischief turn into chaos. He wondered when he stopped having so much fun with it.

"Well," he shook his head, "I hope they find it. From what I've seen so far, this weapon appears to be from a Berserker arsenal. Berserkers were mostly third class workers who were drafted when wars got a little on the desperate side, but they were given spells, enchantments, and other similar things to get them ready for the battlefield in a short frame of time."

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, giving a few, slow nods as a contemplative expression took over her features. "It's made to turn average men into conquerors."

"Exactly." He looked back at the pages for a moment, sighing and taking his third bitter sip. "It's not like the time Mjolnir landed on earth. Mjolnir couldn't be lifted or manipulated by anyone, so it just sat there, waiting for a worthy hand, completely harmless. This…" he let out another sigh. "This is designed for war and death. It is about as far from harmless as you can get."

"Well, they boys are wearing gloves, and reasoning with this hate group isn't in the game plan. We can try reason after the staff is in safe hands." Natasha placed the paper she had been holding back down on the table and picked up the other, folding it and stuffing it into her pocket to take to Fury later. "You work fast."

Loki snorted softly. "I can give you more information than that. I can tell you that the staff was created by someone of a noble rank or higher, given the half of the signature I can see. Its indestructability is on the same level as Captain America's shield, meaning it wasn't broken by humans or even the bare hands of an Asgardian. Magic built it, and magic took it apart. That said, we can probably find whoever hid it, because they can't be mortal and they have to possess magic or strength so extreme they would rival the green beast—and perhaps win."

Natasha blew her bangs out of her eyes, red locks falling back into her face and forcing her to use a hand to swipe them away. "Bruce and I will scan for any alien activity, and you might want to hit the history books again. Even if magic was used to conceal it, you said the staff itself is pretty old. Maybe there's something in the books humanity has misinterpreted."

Pursing his lips, he reached out and grabbed a book from the top of the stack, opening to the table of contents and mumbling under his breath. "That's not a half bad idea… let's see, that would put us… somewhere between one hundred B.C. and one hundred A.D."

"Loki."

He looked up, his expression betraying the confusion and sudden alarm he felt.

"I talked to Bruce. You haven't told him what's on your mind."

The god huffed, returning to his book. "What I share and do not share with Bruce is my business, not yours. We've had other things to talk about."

The Russian crossed her arms over her chest, weight shifting and pushing her hip to one side. "So, you really didn't tell him."

Loki blinked and then glared, fists clenching around either half of the book. "Must you do that?"

"Do what?" she asked, but a knowing smile danced on her lips.

"This isn't an interrogation, Romanoff. The manipulation and mind games are unwarranted. It's none of your business what goes on during my sessions with Dr. Banner, so why don't you stop shoving your nose where it doesn't belong, hmm?" He snapped the book shut and slammed it down on top of the stack, standing up and pretending to occupy himself with the clutter spread across the table. "For Odin's sake, you're worse than Thor."

A satisfied hum came from behind, pushing his blood pressure higher, and her voice followed a few moments later. "I think that's a compliment coming from you."

Loki scoffed. "Have you seen us interact?"

"No." There was no mirth in her voice. "Because you haven't had more than four short, heated conversations with him since he was banished."

He paused in his movements. "We spoke on Jotunheim."

"While you were injured and desperate and he was walking on eggshells to ensure you wouldn't be alone." Her reply came without hesitation, footsteps signaling her approach and forcing the god to turn around. "If you're telling me I'm like Thor, then I can only assume you're telling me I'm like a sibling to you, because you don't have anything but that image to go on. You don't know who he is any more than he knows who you are."

Loki slammed his hand down on the tabletop, the sound echoing through the room. "Enough!" He glared at her, fingers curling around the papers beneath his hand, rage swelling beneath the surface. "I know Thor better than any of you. We have one thousand years of history, our entire childhoods are interwoven, and we were together for most of our lives. You claim to know him better with your pitiful _two? _Impossible."

"Is it?" Natasha cocked her head to the side, eyes unwavering, expression impassive. "If that's true, why doesn't Thor understand you? Why do you accuse him of never realizing how much he hurt you? Why is Thor still struggling to communicate with someone he supposedly knows better than anyone else?" She paused for half of a beat, not giving Loki the chance to reply. "You don't know Thor any more than he knows you. If you did, you would know how much he loves you, and you would appreciate him a lot more."

"I know—"

"No, you don't." She patted her pocket. "Thank you for this. I'll take it to Director Fury right away." With a quick glance at her watch, she turned to go and assumed a soldier's gait. "You better get back to work."

There was a fragment of a second where he could have said something, but then the door was closed, and the chance was gone. Loki stood alone by the table, the room empty and mostly dark. He realized the piece of paper beneath his hand was being crumpled up, and he quickly released it, pulling his hand close to himself and rubbing obsessively at the center of his palm.

_I know Thor. I know him. He's a loud, reckless, sentimental, arrogant, violent, buffoon. He cast me out, cast me aside. He stole our father's love when I thought it should have been mine and tried to give it back when I learned I had no rights to it._

He sat down slowly, resting his elbows on his thighs and lowering his head to his hands, the assassin's words running back and forth across his mindscape without pause. She had made him feel cornered, and he knew that meant there were at least some pieces of truth in her words. Being the god of lies, he knew that the best way to construct a lie was to mix it in with the truth. Less is more, as they say.

_I know Thor. I have to know him, he's m—he's not my brother, but I still spent over one thousand years by his side. We were raised together, we played together, we fought together—_

_"—do you remember none of that?"_

Eyes snapped open, body going rigid as the memory invaded his thoughts.

_No. I have work to do. I need to focus._

Shaking his head, he returned to the task at hand, determined to put Thor and any semblance of a relationship they once had out of his mind. He had to focus on his project, and then he had to take his results to Natasha to prove he was completely in control of his supposed problems and was perfectly capable of completing the task he'd been given.

Loki stopped.

_I didn't ask. I didn't even bargain. I just… accepted it. I was so desperate for something to do, something involving magic, that I threw away a good chance at gaining some benefits for myself. _Laughing bitterly, he began to rub his face. _Oh, this is fantastic. Would it be too obvious if I switched things up suddenly? No, no, I could make it look like a plan, and three of their teammates would be stuck waiting for more information, so they'd have more of a reason to meet my demands._

He turned his head, surveying the contents of the table with a frown. It was half completed already, and what good would making threats do anyway? It might get him what he wanted in the moment, but it would make it much harder to gain their trust in the long run, and that was crucial if he was ever going to get out of the tower.

_Trust is more important than comfort. Right now, I don't have any demands to make, anyway. I should play it safe, follow the rules, and keep an eye out for weak spots._

Loki sat with a heavy sigh and reclaimed his pen along with the paper containing the almost completed decoding of lines four, five, and six. He would finish this, at the very least, and then perhaps he would take a nap.

_I know Thor. I won't let that woman tell me otherwise again._

He pretended it didn't bother him that the topic was still on his mind.

* * *

"Looks like someone had a late night."

The words caught Steve's ear, and he turned away from the director to see what Tony was talking about. He was greeted by the sight of Loki passed out on the table, papers and pens and the replica of the staff piece sprawled out beneath him.

"Nobody wake him, I'm taking pictures." Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket and started snapping photos, getting several shots from a handful of different angles before stepping back and giving a dismissive wave. "Alright, have at it."

Steve glanced at Thor, who quickly shook his head, and then stepped forward, taking it upon himself to rouse the god from his sleep. Placing a hand on each shoulder, he shook the trickster lightly, calling out. "Loki… Loki, it's Steve. Wake up, Loki."

He was met with incoherent mumbles and intermittent groans, and then the head slowly started to rise, bleary eyes blinking slowly as the sluggish brain behind them started to process the data.

"…good morning… Captain." Loki pulled himself out of Steve's grasp and looked down at his work, rubbing his face and running his hands through his hair before picking up his pen to start again. "How did it go?"

Clint spoke up at that, perched on the back of a chair some fifteen feet away. "They still have their piece of the staff, but we kept them from getting another. We're tied, and there's only one more piece, so they're going to be even more of a pain than before."

Loki scowled. "Troublesome." Returning his attention to Steve, he continued. "When can you get me a replica of the second piece? Also, I will need more of the coffee drink. Preferably in a new flavor."

Steve shook his head before the last request was out of Loki's mouth. "What you need is rest. You should get a couple hours of sleep before you start working again, and we can look for leads of our own in the meantime."

Loki opened his mouth to object, but to the surprise of both him and his opponent, Clint interrupted their discussion in favor of Steve's idea.

"It's just like any other battle or hostage situation. We might not be fighting them hands on at the moment, but it's still a battle of speed and wits, which means the rules of combat and survival still apply. Sleep is crucial. I slept for six hours on the flight back. You should have at least four before getting back to work."

For a moment, Loki looked like he was going to stay on defense, but then he relaxed his shoulders and conceded to their advice with a brief nod. "Very well. I will rest for a while."

Steve smiled, clapping the god on the shoulder. "Come on. You need a thumbprint, and I need to hit the showers. Tony, you got things here?"

"Yup. Scan will be set up by the time you get back."

Steve gave two thumbs up to the entirety of the room and then turned, walking through the doorway and into the hall with Loki at his right. "You did a great job." He started speaking the minute they were out of the room. "You work well under pressure, and you really came through for us." He paused, a suspicious sort of grin parting his lips. "What inspired you to cooperate?"

Loki cast him a weak and fleeting glare, apparently too tired to hold the expression for very long. "I have always enjoyed studying magic. It gave me something to do—eased the boredom for a while—and those infidels were infuriating to say the least, so that may have had a hand in my choice of actions as well." He yawned, reaching up to cover his mouth and smacking his lips when it had passed. "It was a change in routine. That's all."

Steve nodded his head, but his eyes still held a curious and almost teasing sort of look. _If this works, even if it takes a while, it could really be worth it. Loki would make a great ally… and I don't think he'd be half bad as a friend and teammate, either. If he can get over his burning desire to destroy us, of course._

"What are you smiling about?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking about last night. It was really crazy out there, so your help was appreciated." He paused briefly, and then decided to make an executive move. "I'm glad we finished when we did. I think Clint was the only thing keeping Tony and I from throwing punches."

It was Loki's turn to be curious, his brows arching sharply at the soldier's words. "I wasn't aware that there were harsh feelings between the two of you."

Steve had figured as much. Loki had gotten almost all of his information from Clint, and Clint wouldn't have known something like that. And even if he did have some kind of idea, he never got the chance to see it in action, so he wouldn't have known the specifics either way.

"Not really harsh feelings, just a difference of opinions and morals. I'm… well, like it said in that book you showed me. I'm the golden boy with the pure heart. I like to follow the rules and lead and take responsibility. Tony sometimes acts like he doesn't have a heart at all, and he likes to break the rules and follow his own lead." Steve smiled softly, staring up at the ceiling as a reminiscent light filled his eyes. "I believe in sacrifice, and he's a narcissist. We have clashing personalities, and we were raised in two completely different time periods. I think the only thing we share is taste in music. But I guess that's just how teams work, you know?" He glanced sideways to gauge the reaction.

Loki's brow creased and his eyes shifted downward, focused intently on the patterns in the carpet, almost as if they held the answer to his unspoken question. "No, I don't know. Fighting is very uniform on Asgard. Tony wouldn't be able to make his own rules unless he was very high in the chain of command, so…" He shook his head. "Why tolerate it? You're the leader."

Steve laughed softly. "Being a leader doesn't mean bossing people around and doing what you want. It means keeping people together and bringing out the best in them. Tony likes to break the rules, but sometimes that's necessary. He's an independent thinker, and while it's frustrating, it can also lead to great ideas and innovation. A good leader will listen to the input of his teammates, treat them as equals, and try to grow the team as a whole while striving to obtain a specific goal or standard."

Loki only nodded, falling silent.

Steve let him mull it over for a couple minutes, and then he nudged the god in the ribs. "Hey, maybe I'll let you sit in on a training session sometime. I can show you what I mean then."

Loki gave another nod, obviously deep in thought, but he didn't hold his tongue this time. "Captain, from a strategic point of view, is it better to address problems before or after a time of conflict?"

Steve frowned slightly, rubbing his chin and pursing his lips. "Well, every situation is different, so it's hard to give an answer to such a broad question. By 'time of conflict' you mean some time where you or your team will be tested or put under pressure, right?"

Yet another nod.

"Hmm… well, it's been my experience that ignoring problems never works." He got the feeling this was a non-hypothetical hypothetical, so he tried to gear his response towards something that might be helpful to Loki personally. "Whether it's stress, build-up, or a time of conflict, like you said, the problem will always come out at the worst time, in the worst of ways. Dealing with problems—whether it's a problem you have with someone else, with yourself, with a certain system or rule—should be done before things get messy, if possible. Otherwise messy can become gruesome just like that." He snapped his fingers, coming to a stop outside Loki's bedroom door. "Was that helpful at all?"

Loki was silent. Slowly, his head started to nod, tongue flashing over his lips and forming words in his mouth. "Yes, it was."

Steve smiled and opened up the door. "Glad I could help." He gave the man another pat on the shoulder. "Get some sleep, Loki. There'll be plenty for you to do when you wake up."

Still smiling, Steve closed and locked the door, starting down the hall towards his own chambers with a new weight on his mind. Bruce hadn't mentioned anything about Loki having problems, and he was required by the contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. to bring anything unusual or concerning before the team for group consideration. So, either Bruce was lying or Loki was concealing potentially dangerous thoughts and feelings. Neither scenario had a good outcome, and, placed on top of the current dilemma in Norway, it was more than the super soldier wanted to deal with at the moment.

_I'll talk to Bruce after my shower._

He yawned, covering his mouth with one hand and rubbing his eye with the other.

_I'll talk to Bruce after my nap._

* * *

Four hours later, just before the sun hit the horizon, S.H.I.E.L.D. got another report and alarms were blazing throughout the tower. It had happened again, and those same three words were scrawled across the road in fire.

_WE ARE GODS_


	17. Chapter 17

Loki cast another glance at the clock, trying to measure how much time had passed since he woke up as well as how many of those hours the ground team had spent trying to locate the third piece of the staff. He immediately decided they were moving too slow for his tastes, and with a shake of his head, he returned to the book spread before him.

"I think you can relax." Bruce picked up the two cups of tea he had made and walked over to the table, extending the one in his left hand with a kind smile. "We know where the third piece is, and when we have two out of three, we'll have the upper hand. Plus, with a demigod, super soldier, long-distance assassin, and suit of solid metal fighting against that magic, I think they're pretty evenly matched."

Loki shook his head, accepting the cup with a muttered word of thanks and taking a generous sip before speaking. "Magic can be very unpredictable. We cannot be assured of any sort of victory until the battle is over. Even then…" He trailed off, staring through the window at the bright, blue sky and wondering what the weather was like. "I suppose I'll have to make up for all the street work I've missed, hmm?"

Bruce sat next to him, leaning back in his chair with a quiet chuckle. "This qualifies as work, too, Loki. If anything, they'll let you have the day off tomorrow so your body can catch up."

Loki stopped with the teacup halfway to his mouth. "I beg your pardon?"

"Your body," the doctor repeated, adjusting his glasses. "You've gone without sleep for the past day and a half, and you've been under a lot of pressure. You keep forgetting you're human now—you need a little time to bounce back from stuff like this."

Scowling, the god returned to his notes, vaguely aware that he was doing it out of spite. "How can you live in bodies so fragile? Furthermore, how do you manage a lifespan of more than ten to twenty years?"

Bruce only laughed, nursing his drink in between statements. "I didn't say you were going to get sick or be stuck in bed, you're just going to be tired. If a human wants to do intense work like this every day, they have to build their body up for it. You can't burn out all of your energy in one run and not expect to have some repercussions."

Green eyes flickered from page to page, not actually reading any of the words they were looking at, and his expression darkened even more. "It's so infuriating." Terrifying. "You walk around with death hanging over your heads, and yet you somehow manage to ignore it and pretend you'll live forever when you know you really won't. How?"

Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "I think it's a perspective thing. We seem fragile to you because you're used to a superior body type. For us, it's all we've ever known. Granted, most people have been faced with a situation that reminded them of the frailty of human life, but it's not as if every single thing we do is detrimental to our health."

Loki had nothing to say to that, so he let the room go quiet, taking another swig of his drink and staring absently at the parchments spread all over the table. Talking about mortality while surrounded by the one piece of his godhood he wanted back the most was proving to be very counterproductive, and he once again found himself wondering why he had taken this job so willingly.

"Loki, I know this isn't a session, but some of us are concerned about you, so you'll have to pardon me bringing this up." Bruce placed his cup on the tabletop and interlocked his fingers, placing both hands atop his knee and watching the other's face carefully. "You go for long spells where you look very distracted and unsettled. You've been reacting defensively more than usual and to people you aren't usually defensive with. You're backtracking as far as sessions are concerned, and you don't seem to want to talk to anyone about anything of importance."

Heaving a sigh, the trickster brought his hand to his face and massaged the muscles running across his forehead. "Dr. Banner, is it really an appropriate time to be having this conversation?"

"It's a good a time as any." Bruce inhaled slowly, looking away for a moment as if to gather his thoughts before returning his gaze to Loki's face. "I know you don't trust us, and I know you've got a lot of conflicting thoughts and feelings right now. You came back from Jotunheim very overwhelmed and exhausted, and you've been recovering, but if you put your walls up, you'll backslide. If you backslide, it's just a matter of time until you're back at square one."

_You think I don't know that? _He kept the reply inside the confines of his own mind, staring at the table with an unwarranted intensity. "You took advantage of my situation on Jotunheim, and while I applaud your strategic approach, you have to know that it won't happen again. There is no backslide because there was no actual progress. You manipulated me in a moment of weakness, nothing more."

Bruce tilted his head slightly, a curious and uncondemning expression consuming his features. "You've spoken to that affect before, and I understand your mistrust, but can I ask you something?"

It took Loki a moment to realize it was a legitimate question and nod in reply.

"What is it about sharing with me that scares you? What is it you think I'm going to do with that information?" Bruce adjusted his glasses, waiting a few seconds before pressing further. "I know you've heard this from some of the others, especially lately, but it's true. Loki, if we wanted to, we would treat you like the war criminal you are and interrogate you for information and cooperation. You'd have an ankle bracelet, a proper cell, and one outfit to your name. This whole idea that there's some intricate, convoluted plan to gain your trust and then exploit you is… quite honestly, illogical."

Loki set his jaw, tension running through his shoulders and into his back. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"I see you found the Sherlock Holmes books." Bruce offered a small smile. "What's so impossible about us giving you a second chance?"

Loki scoffed, chest tightening as the familiar sensation of being cornered started to creep into his bloodstream. "Don't be daft. I am a threat to you and your planet. I have proven myself an enemy in the past, and I maintain the title of 'war criminal' to this day, a fact which you yourself admitted not three minutes ago. Kindness won't get you anything from me, so there is no benefit to be had."

"You sure?" He didn't miss a beat, adjusting his glasses and then gesturing towards the door. "Natasha got a second chance from S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony was given a second chance at life, and what he did with that chance was truly incredible. You know what I am. I'm a monster, an uncontrollable beast, and yet I'm still somehow a member of this team."

Loki glared, but it quickly melted away into defeat, a sigh escaping his lips as he reluctantly conceded and ceased to argue. "Dr. Banner… I know that you are sincere. I do not understand it, and I do not trust it, but I can see that you mean what you say. However," he gave Bruce the sort of look that meant the doctor should have seen this coming, "I have never been one to share personal stories or facts. I don't want to talk about that which is on my mind as of late, and if you truly are sincere, then you should respect me and leave it alone already."

Bruce stared him down for several minutes, his face a mixture of concern and disappointment. "Okay, if that's what you want," he finally said, sipping his tea and shaking his head slowly. "I'm always here if you need me, any time of day or night. If this… thing, whatever it is… decides to rear its ugly head at four o' clock in the morning or in the middle of street work or wherever and whenever else, just let me know."

"Thank you." Loki gave a sharp nod and returned to his work, silence filling the space between them once again. It was somewhat strained, given an edge by the topic of the conversation that went before, but neither man tried to break it.

_If this thing decides to rear its ugly head in the middle of this project._

That was what Bruce had meant, even if he hadn't outright said it, and Loki knew that he was trying to build on what Steve had said the night before. If he had to deal with something, they wanted him to deal with it right away. Loki understood why, too. He was working with things related to Asgard, a topic he had avoided like the plague from day one, and the alien object in question was a purveyor of hatred and despair. When mixed with Loki's conflicted thoughts about his ex-home and all that lay within, it became the perfect combination for disaster.

_It doesn't matter. I've already decided not to reveal the lies I shared with Dr. Banner, so the best course of action is to keep dodging. We should have the staff in our possession soon enough, and when we do, things will go back to routine. The only thing I need to worry about might be Natasha sticking her nose where it doesn't belong and feeding him information. I'll have to watch my back more carefully, especially when I do street work with her._

His train of thought continued to fly down the track, leaving his anxiety behind and plowing straight into the one thing that made him feel like he was in control: manipulation. Manipulation, schemes, and lies. Without them, he would have no defense against prying eyes. Without them, he would have to admit defeat.

Without them, he would have to talk to Banner.

* * *

_Over and back, the long waves crawl, and track the sand with foam; night darkness and the sea, takes on that desperate tone, of dark that wives put on, when all their love is done. Over and back, the tangled thread falls slack, over and up and on; over and all is sewn; now while I bind the other end, I wish some fiery friend, would sweep impetuously, these fingers from the loom. My weary thoughts, play traitor to my soul, just as the toil is over; swift while…_

Loki grabbed his bookmark from the nightstand and wedged it in between the pages, snapping the book shut and setting it aside with a long, heavy sigh. Hilda Doolittle had kept his attention no better than Arthur Conan Doyle or William Shakespeare, and he found himself staring up at the ceiling once again.

_I don't like it._

The Avengers had gone to retrieve the third piece of the staff. They had fluttered away to fight the infamous Norwegian hate group and claim the Asgardian treasure as their own once and for all. They had donned their suits and their spangles and their weapons of choice and disappeared into the sky. They had left, but that wasn't what bothered him. No, what bothered him was the eighteen hours that had passed without their return.

_They are fighting mortals—young, stupid mortals at that. Once they remove the piece of staff from the group, they should be no more dangerous than the homeless people living in the streets below. So, why is it taking them so long?_

His stomach growled, and he shoved a pillow over it in annoyance. He hadn't eaten since lunch the day before, but there was nothing to be done about that. He couldn't leave, he didn't have food in his room, and until Earth's Mightiest Heroes returned from their conquest, there was no one to get him any.

_Watch them all die and leave me to starve in here._

Sighing again, he pulled the pillow from his stomach and placed it over his face, groaning loudly. "Jarvis." His voice was muffled by the downy feathers and cotton. "I don't suppose you can unlock this door?"

"I cannot, Loki."

"You can't bring me food, either, can you?"

"I do not have a physical form, Loki."

"You can't call anyone?"

"Not at your request, Loki."

"Can you finish a sentence without the inclusion of my name?"

"Yes, Loki."

Low, guttural, incredible frustrated noises rose in the liar's throat, his brain going over all of his belongings in search of something to do. He had written up nine poems with his calligraphy set, finished one book and attempted to read three others, he had made his bed twice, reorganized his closet and bathroom, taken a nap, and at one point he had resorted to making faces at himself in the mirror.

_I've considered using the ring more than once, but I'm not entirely sure how to make it unsuspicious. If I put it on my finger and then sit there deep in concentration for a few hours, it's going to grab their attention, and right now it's the only magical thing I own._

Dropping the pillow, he sat up and looked at the dresser, pursing his lips. "Jarvis, Dr. Banner said it's a good idea to spend time in my Jotun form. What do you think?"

"I am unable to give an opinion on that particular topic, Loki."

_Of course not, you're a machine. _"It couldn't hurt. Not really, I guess. No one will see me," _and no one can read my thoughts, _"so why not? I can take it off. I know I can, I've done it before. It's not as if I'll get trapped in my Jotun form or…" He forced a nervous laugh, getting up and inching his way closer to the dresser.

"If Dr. Banner has recommended this method of treatment, I would assume it is a wise course of action. However, I will have to raise the temperature in the room to counteract the decreases your change will cause."

Loki gave a slight nod, figuring that the security cameras in his room served as eyes for the artificial intelligence, and opened the top drawer of his dresser. _As far as anyone knows, I'm hesitantly taking Dr. Banner's advice. I just have to be careful not to spend too much time with it._

He dug through the socks until he found the little piece of silver, staring at the emeralds and jades embedded in the band as they caught the light. The ring changed him before he even had it on, but as he closed the drawer and turned to face the mirror, he found himself surprisingly comfortable with what he saw. He didn't like it, of course, and he wasn't sure that he ever would, but his usual feelings of disgust and shame were absent. He felt that the form was acceptable, at least.

"I don't suppose you have any opinions on skin color, do you?"

"I have an opinion of equality regardless of race," the AI replied immediately. "Although, I have been programmed this way, so I am not certain whether or not you find such an opinion valid, Loki."

Sighing again, Loki walked over to his bed and lay down on his back, closing his eyes and letting out a slow, steady breath. He had only managed this exercise four times since his return from Jotunheim, but he could tell he was getting better at it, even if it was infuriatingly slow compared to what it once was.

_Focus on the magic. It's coursing through your veins, inside of you where it belongs. You only have to find the rhythm, and the manipulation will come naturally. Mostly._

Magic couldn't come naturally to him now. It was impossible, given all of the seals Odin had placed throughout his system. For him to think he could control magic as he once did was tantamount to an athlete with broken legs thinking they could still run a marathon. It didn't matter that the legs were still there or that they could be fixed or that the mind knew what they should be capable of because at the moment they were broken. Useless. Loki was having the same problem with his magic. He could feel it, he could see it, and he knew it could be fixed, but he couldn't _do _anything with it.

Not yet, anyway.

_If there are seals containing Odin's magic, then they will either react to the presence of a foreign signature, or they will block it off altogether. Both of them should be easy to spot, and yet the magic seems to be flowing through without any disturbances. Odin, you clever, clever man._

Loki opened his eyes and cast a quick glance at the clock before trying again.

_You made it as undetectable as possible, but you underestimate my abilities. You can delay me all you like, but you can't stop me, not in the end. You can keep my birthright from me, and you can keep my home from me, but you cannot keep my magic from me. That is one thing I will never surrender. You are a fool if you think—_

"Your blood pressure is rising, Loki. Might I suggest you take a break?"

Loki let out a frustrated sigh and nodded his head, pushing a congested sort of tone into his voice. "Y-yes, I… yes, that would be a good idea." Closing his eyes again, he started to focus on the removal of the ring, taking deep and calming breaths. "I think I'll try reading again."

"An excellent decision, Loki."

He dove back into the depths of his mind, focusing solely on the task of removing the ring, and after a three minute struggle, it was finally off of his finger. Still feigning distress, he dropped it back into his drawer and returned to the bed, blue fading to cream and red fading to green.

Flopping onto his bed, he picked up his book and started where he left off, asking one final question before attempting to lose himself in the pages.

"Jarvis, how long has it been?"

"Eighteen hours, thirty-two minutes, and twelve seconds, Loki."

Heaving a sigh, he returned to his book, torn between thinking about the missing Avengers, thinking about ways to unlock his magic, and focusing on what was actually in front of him.

_…swift while the woof is whole, turn now my spirit, swift, and tear the pattern there, the flowers so deftly wrought, the border of sea-blue, the sea-blue coast of home. The web was over-fair, that web of pictures there, enchantments that I thought, he had, that I had lost; weaving his happiness, within the stitching frame, weaving his fire and fame, I thought my work was done, I prayed that only one, of those that I had spurned, might stoop and conquer this, long waiting with a kiss._

_But each time that I see, my work so beautifully, interwoven and would keep, the picture and the whole, Athene steels my soul, slanting across my brain, I see as shafts of rain, his chariot and his shafts, I see the arrows fall, I see my lord who moves, like Hector, lord of love, I see him matched with fair, bright rivals and I see, the lesser rivals flee._

Loki smiled.

_I see the lesser rivals flee._

* * *

"I said I'm not angry with you."

Thor dragged his hands down his face, standing next to the large study table where Loki sat devouring a long overdue meal. "But you _are_ mad, I can tell. You are very displeased, but I do not know what more I can do. I have apologized many times, Loki, but it was not something I had control over. I cannot do much more than I have already done."

Loki didn't even glance in his general direction. "I know. Hence, I am not angry with you."

Sighing, the thunderer threw himself onto a chair and let it roll across the floor, frustration evident on his features. It had taken them twenty-seven hours to complete the mission and return to the tower, and by then Loki was bordering between fury and panic. He didn't let on, of course, but Thor knew.

"Why would he be angry, Blondie? Someone would have gotten him eventually." Tony shoved a piece of pepperoni pizza in his mouth, chewing with the gusto of a man who had worked but not eaten all day. "Heck, I expected him to throw a party while we were gone."

Thor shook his head. "Man of Iron, you do not understand. Ever since we were young—"

"Thor, if I want them to know such things, I'll let them read my biography." Loki paused. "I'm kidding, I don't have a biography. But if I did, my previous statement would apply." Smirking, he cast a glance in Tony's direction. "That is how the joke went, yes?"

Tony chuckled and nodded his head, reaching for another piece. "You got it."

Thor glowered silently, sulking on his swivel chair, appetite coming and going depending on the topic of conversation. _He's doing this on purpose. He is being jovial and friendly with them, and specifically cold towards me, and yet he will not admit that he is angry. How can I make amends if he gives me no chance? _Heaving a sigh, the blonde got to his feet and walked towards the door, hoping some fresh air would help him to clear his mind and calm his temper.

"Thor, you haven't even touched your pizza." Ever the caring leader, Steve had to point out that Thor wasn't taking care of himself properly, but at the moment the god felt no gratitude. Instead, he ignored the statement and let himself out through the double doors, striding down the hall with every intention of going up onto the roof.

"Mr. Odinson, Tony wants me to tell you that you are forbidden from breaking anything."

Thor scoffed. "I am not a child. Tell him—" He stopped, turning slowly and looking up at the ceiling. "Jarvis, you have the surveillance footage for every room in the building, yes?"

"Yes, Mr. Odinson. Is that your message for Tony?"

"No, no, forget about that." Rubbing his chin, he started back the way he had come, trying to recall exactly where the computer lab was and how to work the machines inside. "I should have clearance to view the video footage of Loki's room. Would you assist me in watching his movements for the last day and a half?"

"Of course, Mr. Odinson."

Thor cracked a small smile. "You needn't put my name at the end of every sentence, my invisible friend."

"Dually noted, Mr. Odinson."

Rolling his eyes, he passed the room he had just exited and continued down the hall, taking a few turns and going down two flights of stairs before making another handful of turns and finally finding himself standing in front of a large computer.

"Jarvis, bring up the footage from the past forty-eight hours." He sat down in the chair and grabbed the mouse, waiting until the image popped up to search for the fast forward, rewind, and pause buttons. "Now, let us see what my brother has been up to."

He clicked the fast forward button right away, knowing he wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary until at least twelve hours had passed. Loki was still behaving normally at that point, though, lying on his stomach with his face in his hands and his nose in a book. Smiling, Thor fast forwarded through two more hours and then stopped again.

Loki was now copying text from a book, writing in out in flowing, elaborate letters with symbols and borders so intricate, so delicate, so dignified, Thor found himself wanting to read them just to stare at the lines and curves. This, in and of itself, was not odd. However, as Loki continued to write, Thor noticed that his care decreased. He made a few minor mistakes but didn't correct them, and the ornamental decorations got less frequent and steadily simpler.

_He first started showing distress at fourteen hours and thirty-six minutes. We were gone for another... twelve and a half hours. _Thor sighed, rubbing his forehead. It was nice to know, but it didn't exactly help him. He knew exactly why Loki was angry with him, what he didn't know was how he was supposed to fix it when Loki wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of a problem in the first place.

Shaking his head, the god of thunder pressed the fast forward button again and waited until Loki had moved on to another task to play it. He repeated this process several times, making notes as he went and trying to determine at which point Loki actually decided to be mad about it.

_He can't get himself into books, which means he's very distracted and upset, but he still doesn't seem angry. Frustrated, perhaps, and maybe even worried, but not angry. _

He was surprised to see Loki trying on his Jotun form, and he inwardly kicked himself for the automatic thoughts that flickered through the front of his mind, condemning the trickster for conforming to a species they had always believed was beneath them.

_"Your blood pressure is rising, Loki. Might I suggest you take a break?"_

There.

Thor leaned forward slightly, watching Loki's movements and listening to the conversation between him and the AI. Loki must have gotten angry while he was laying there in his Jotun form, but why? What was it about his supposed self-acceptance exercise had made him angry with Thor?

_Did he feel abandoned? His birth mother abandoned him, so he could feel… no, no, he doesn't rely on me in the first place. Abandonment would be something he would feel towards the Captain or Dr. Banner. _He swallowed the bitterness rising in his throat and tried to think it through again. _Is this more of his anger about his heritage showing through again? It is about the fact that he's adopted? No, it can't be, he's always quick to express anger about this. He's trying to keep his anger hidden this time. Why?_

Leaning back in the chair, Thor rubbed at his face and listened to the audio, trying to pick up on something—anything—that would give him a clue. He found nothing, and he could only conclude that the reason was what he had thought it to be all along.

"Jarvis, shut everything off." Thor pushed his chair back and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him and making his way towards the gathering room with a fist clenched on either side of him.

_If I was right, why won't he tell me?_

Loki had always despised being alone. When Thor and Odin went on their first hunt together, they took an extra day to explore and play games. It was meant to be harmless, but they came home to find Loki sitting by the door with tears running down both cheeks, immensely relieved to find they weren't dead. It became less obvious and less frequent as they grew older, but even up to the hunting trip Thor took less than a week before that fatal coronation day, Loki worried about him when he wasn't home. Maybe it had something to do with his need for control, or maybe Loki really did harbor some of his old, brotherly feelings, but whatever it was, it was still there.

"Loki!" Thor threw open the door and stormed up to the table, yanking the pizza box out of his brother's reach. "Why are you not admitting your anger towards me?"

Loki only glared. "For the last time, I'm _not _angry with you."

"That is a bold-faced lie, Loki, and you know it." Thor gestured towards the open doorway leading to the halls, aware of his rising volume but unwilling to stop it. "I watched the footage of your room, and you may think I am an oblivious buffoon who is completely blind to evidence of your emotions, but you are wrong. I knew the minute you started to show distress, so do not tell me that you are not angry when I know for a fact that you are."

"You mean when I couldn't read the books? I was tired, that's all."

"No, I don't mean when you couldn't focus on your books. I mean when you were practicing calligraphy fourteen hours and thirty-six minutes after we departed." Loki's eyes widened ever-so-slightly, and Thor knew he hit the nail on the head. "I know that you were distressed, and I know that it is because we did not return on schedule and we did not contact you—_I _did not contact you, never mind the we. I am the one responsible, and I am sorry, but I do not know what you want me to do."

"Thor, just drop it." Loki reached for the box of pizza, wetting his lips and speaking in a quiet but extremely deadly tone. "I don't want to discuss it."

Thor's hand came down on top of the box. "I will not drop it! It is unfair, Loki. You cannot get angry at me and brush me aside, and then at the same time lie about your feelings and refuse to tell me what I can do to show the sincerity of my apology. It's like telling me you want me to read and forbidding me from looking at the written word. I cannot win, it's _impossible."_

Loki stood up then, slamming his hand down on the table and turning to face his brother fully. "You want to talk about fairness? I'll tell you what's unfair, Thor, because I've been fighting a losing battle much, much longer than you have. If I do tell you that I'm angry and ask for an apology, you always find some way to twist it around and make it my fault, because I'm Loki the Liesmith, Loki the Silvertongue, Loki the Liar. If I don't tell you I'm angry, then I'm obviously hiding some nefarious plot or scheme because I'm Loki the Trickster, Loki the Troublemaker, Loki the Master of Mischief. I can't win any more than you can, that's how it's always been, so pardon me if I err on the side of silence!"

Thor didn't even miss a beat, his temper reaching a slow and steady boil, hands shaking and cheeks flushing red. "Can't you see I'm _trying _to fix all of that? You know it, Loki, and I know you do because you confronted me on Jotunheim. You thought there was something wrong with me, and when I tried to tell you there wasn't, you got angry with me, and here we are, weeks later, and you're doing the same thing." He took a deep breath, trying to bring his volume down. "I tried to apologize, and I tried to understand, and I tried to make amends, but you shut me out again. I said nothing about your secrecy being part of a plot or a scheme, I only want an answer. What do you _want _from me, Loki?"

Loki let out a burst of sharp, bitter, sarcastic laughter. "I want _sincerity_, and if you expect me to believe you've experienced some magical change over the course of two months after one thousand years of pretending you were somehow better than me because of your _stupid hammer, _you've got another thing coming, _Brother!"_ He spat the word, saliva spraying from his mouth but going unheeded as the thunderer leaned in closer.

"What exactly is so unbelievable about that? You changed overnight just from learning one little fact about yourself, why can't I do the same?" Thor laughed in the same way Loki had, shaking his head and throwing his hands up. "Of course! It's because I am weak-minded, right? Because you're so smart and calculative that you took one single fact and used it to rewrite your entire person, but I would need much more time and cultivation because I'm too thick to figure things out as quickly as you did!"

The younger god let out a frustrated shout. "Why am I not surprised? Once again, everything is my fault. Brilliant!"

"You know what I think?" Thor took a step forward, leering down at the smaller male with unbridled fury in his eyes. "I think you just can't let go of anything anyone has ever done to you because if you don't have something to hate people for, then you have no justification for the way that you act. All of a sudden, the destruction of Manhattan and Jotunheim, the orphaned Jotuniri, Brianna living without a family or a home—all of it is because of petty, selfish, _childish _reasons."

"Shut up, Thor. Do you hear me? Not another word."

"Because if you forgive me for what I've done in the past, and if you try again, then you can't take your anger out on me anymore. In fact, you can't be angry at all, you have to let it go, and I think you like being angry." Thor prodded the center of his brother's chest with an index finger, gritting his teeth as his tone fell lower and lower. "You want to make everyone pay for every bad thing that has ever happened to you, and you can't stop now because that would mean everything you've done was in vain. All the blood, all the carnage, jumping off of the bridge, the Chitauri, the Jotuns, Manhattan—all of it is both unwarranted and meaningless without that burning, seething, relentless, _petty _hatred."

"Shut up!"

Thor staggered backward, just half of Loki's scream registering before he felt two hands around his throat and the full weight of his little brother being thrust against him. Loki couldn't get Thor on the ground in his mortal, but the grip he had on the thunderer's throat was unrelenting, and it didn't help that he had been taken by surprise.

"Loki, let go!"

"Careful!"

"Thor, dig your fingers into the inside of his wrists."

Natasha's voice broke through the chaos, crisp and clear, and Thor immediately took her advice. He dug his fingers in and twisted Loki's wrists until the hands came loose, at which point the rest of the Avengers dragged the two men away from each other.

"Loki, calm down."

"Thor, can you breathe alright?"

"Let me go this instant!"

"Should I get the sedatives?"

"Do you need first aid?"

_"Enough!"_

Silence blanketed the room, everyone stopping and looking at Steve, who stood between the group and the still open doorway, a hand on each hip and his jaw set in place. There was no sound in the room save for the heavy breathing of those involved in the scuffle, making the captain's voice sound all the more authoritative as it pierced the air again.

"Thor, do you need medical attention?"

Coughing, Thor shook his head. His throat was sore, and his voice would be hoarse for a while, but he hadn't blacked out and he, unlike his brother, was still in possession of his godhood.

"Good." Steve gave a single nod. "Dr. Banner, how are your stress levels?"

Bruce cleaned his glasses on his shirt, surprisingly calm given the situation. "I'm fine, thanks. I kind of saw this coming, so I was prepared." He returned his spectacles to their perch and gave an encouraging smile.

"Good." Steve looked to the only non-teammate in the room, the one who was staring at the ground with enough fire in his eyes to scorch the entire planet in a second. "Loki, are you calm?"

For a moment, it looked like there might be another fight, but then Loki's head started to bob up and down. "Enough."

"Clint, Tony, let him go." Steve waved them off, and then he gestured to the room as a whole. "So, who wants to go first?"

Thor's shoulders slouched, fatigue overcoming his body as the adrenaline his temper had given him started to run out. "What—" he coughed, cleared his throat, and tried again, "—what do you mean?"

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean that was a pretty intense argument you just had. There's a lot of raw emotions flying, and a lot of interwoven factors here." He nodded in the direction of specific teammates as he referenced them. "Bruce, Natasha, and I have all noticed Loki acting strange lately. Tony, on the flight back, you said Thor was behaving differently but you didn't know why, and I agreed with you. Clint, you don't say much, but I know you see everything and usually catch onto stuff like this before the rest of us." He paused, looking around the room. "This might be an argument between Thor and Loki, but it involves all of us. We're going to tackle this as a team. So… who wants to go first?"

Thor stared at the floor, tuning out his surroundings as a wave of frustration washed over him. He had been doing such a good job of keeping his temper under control and giving his brother copious amounts of space. On Jotunheim, he thought things were actually getting better, but as soon as they returned he realized Loki simply didn't want to be abandoned there. Still, he kept on trying, and he gave Loki a wide berth, and he didn't snap or interfere when others were trying to help… and then he just blew it all to pieces.

"Well, uh, I guess I'll go first?" Tony rubbed the back of his head, putting the other hand on his hip and letting out a slow breath. "Okay, well, I'll start by saying this. If you guys are ever going to learn to get along, you've got to let go of the past. I know it sucks, but forgiveness can't be based on another person's actions, because people mess up. Loki, if you don't forgive Thor for things he's already done, then every time he makes the tiniest mistake, it's going to bring back all these horrible memories and hurt the relationship even further. Thor, that goes for you, too. I know Loki is the one who's got daddy issues, but some of those things you were saying are obviously problems you've been neglecting." He looked between them for a moment and then spread his hands, closing his statement with a shrug. "You two have to forgive each other on your own terms, or you're not going to have any relationship at all. If you try and wait for the other person to get it right before you forgive them, you're going to be waiting forever because nobody's perfect. Also, footnote: I hate group exercises."

Thor once again dropped his gaze to the floor, mulling over what Tony had said. It hadn't hit him until he was in the heat of the moment, but he really did have a lot of buried feelings about Loki that had been left unacknowledged for quite some time. He had been so obsessed with Loki's betrayal and dangerous ambitions that he swept them under the rug, but Tony was right—they had come out when he was angry, and they scarred the relationship deeper.

Clint shifted his weight, shoving his hands into his pockets and taking the floor. "If we're just analyzing the argument," he started, "I'll note you guys have the typical, age-old Sibling Reverse Syndrome. Loki, you think Thor thinks he's better than you because he's strong. Thor, you think Loki thinks he's better than you because he's smart. Odin favored Thor, so I'm willing to go out on a limb and say Frigga favored Loki, or it seemed that way at times. You just have to face the fact that you are two completely separate individuals and no one will ever treat you with one hundred percent equality." He shrugged his shoulders, hopping backwards and landing on the table with a sigh. "That's all I got." Swinging his legs, he turned his head to look at Natasha.

"Oh, no." She shook her head. "I don't give advice on relationships." Glancing across the room towards Bruce, she nodded her head in his general direction. "Maybe the makeshift therapist should start talking now. Save us all some time."

Bruce laughed softly, spreading his hands with a light-hearted shrug. "I think this is great."

Thor frowned, prompting Bruce to hold up his hands in a silent plea for patience.

"Loki, you've been under our jurisdiction for about two months. During that time, Thor gave you a lot of personal space, so there wasn't a lot of opportunity for conflict. When you were on Jotunheim, he was your only contact with the outside world, so your ability to argue with him was limited by your own fear of abandonment." Bruce turned slightly, gesturing to the thunderer. "Thor, you've been doing a great job. You've put a lot of effort into taking my advice, and it's been working for you." The doctor glanced around the room, adjusting his glasses before going on. "But you can't stay like this. If you two make a pact to never argue again or to avoid each other as much as possible and merely tolerate each other the rest of the time, then you're not actually in a relationship. You're not even enemies, you're just… existing in the same building."

Thor turned his head to look at Loki, unsurprised to find the other's face still contorted by anger, and he let out a sigh. As much as the thunderer appreciated the care and advice of his friends, it really didn't matter what he said or did. Loki didn't want to repair their relationship, so the effort would forever be one-sided. Thor could follow the advice of every member on the team, he could get closer or draw back, he could be hard or soft, forgiving or vengeful, fast and pushy or slow and easy-going—it didn't matter, it didn't _matter. _Loki wouldn't accept his efforts. Fighting would always be the end result.

"Loki." Bruce turned back towards the trickster, spreading his hands and gesturing between the two brothers. "You did notice the change in Thor, didn't you?"

"It was an act," came the quick, monotonous reply.

"But you did notice, correct?"

Loki sighed, scrubbing his face with both hands and letting out a long, heavy sigh. "Yes, I noticed that Thor was behaving differently. Does it really matter?"

Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, does it? You seem to think Thor is too sentimental and honest to try manipulating other people, and yet you're convinced that he's putting on a front to get you to trust him. Why?"

Loki was silent for a few beats, fists shaking at his sides, and grinding out a response with white-hot fury in his eyes. "I don't have to answer that."

"It's just a question, Loki." Extending a hand towards the blonde Asgardian, he offered something akin to a compromise. "Would you like me to ask Thor a question first?"

"I would like to be done with this conversation so I can return to my room." Loki dropped his gaze to the floor and let it roll sideways until he was looking at the windows, a lazy gait inching him closer and closer to the door.

Bruce shook his head. "Sorry, Loki, but that's not an option. We're going to get some answer tonight, for everyone's sake."

Stopping, the god let out another sigh, staring up at the ceiling with an air of disinterest. Thor watched in silence, his eyes wandering over the other's form and counting up the oddities in Loki's behavior. He felt cornered and ganged up on, with the threat of humiliation hanging in the air behind him, forcing him to feign disinterested superiority.

Thor could see right through him, of course. Knowing Loki as well as he did, the thunder god was very much aware that the idea of sharing his feelings in front of a group was mortifying for the wayward trickster. So, Thor had a choice.

He could interject himself into the conversation and state to the assembled group what he saw so plainly in his brother's countenance, embarrassing Loki but forcing him to come to terms with something he so vehemently denied at the same time. Alternately, he could find some way to dismantle the group and let Loki return to his room with his pride in tact along with the belief that his once-brother was incapable of sincere love for him.

Thor didn't like either option.

"I don't think you need to ask him, Dr. Banner." Still, it looked like his brain had made up its mind. "Denial can be related to many emotions, but there is still one core feeling beneath it all, and that is fear."

Loki glared at him, silently shaking, unadulterated loathing in his eyes.

Thor stared right back, unwavering. "Loki doesn't think I have the skill or the heart to manipulate him, so the only reason he would be denying the sincerity of my actions is because he's afraid to believe that they're real." He squared his shoulders, trying to calm his heart in his chest. "Isn't that right, Loki?"

"Shut up." Gritting his teeth, the trickster growled out the command, angry tears already forming in the corner of his eyes.

_Just like the time we fought on the Bifrost. _

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest, looking curiously between the two, almost as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with this turn of events. "Well, Loki, what do you have to say to that?"

"I already said it," he snapped. "Shut. Up."

Thor shook his head. "I will not. You're going to despise me no matter what I do, so I might as well take the opportunity to make you face what you continuously deny."

"I am not in denial!" He shouted suddenly, the increase in volume putting everyone on edge. "I have spent one thousand years with you, Thor, and you might be a stupid, naïve, fool of a god, but there's nothing you won't do to get what you want."

"Nothing I won't do? You mean I would give up the one person in this world or any other that I love the most?" He took deep, steadying breaths in between phrases, determined not to shout again no matter how angry he got. "Tell me, if I wanted something bad enough, would I swallow my pride and allow every attempt at civility to be smitten by the hatred of another? Are you saying I would even go so far as to risk my friendships and the welcoming arms of a planet I have come to love and respect as my home away from home just to get what I want?"

Loki blinked rapidly, his eyes shifting from one person to the next as he struggled to maintain a hold on the situation. His pride was burning, crumbling beneath the weight of the situation, his cheeks tinted with the slightest shade of pink beneath the glisten of nearly invisible tears.

"Loki, what could I possibly want so badly?"

"For me to come home, of course!"

There was silence in the room, Bruce offering up the smallest of smiles in Loki's direction, as if he expected the mischief maker to understand what had just happened. Everyone else kept their eyes trained on Loki, and while Thor knew they were making Loki even more distraught, he didn't know how to ask them to stop without being accused of patronization.

"Tell me, Loki…" Thor reached out a hand, taking a few steps closer. "What is so terrible about that?"

Loki lurched backwards, stumbling into the Captain in a desperate attempt to put space between them. "Get away from me," he snarled, pushing away the arms of the god and soldier alike as he made his way towards the door. "Just—just—"

"Loki," Bruce started, intercepting the departure and placing both hands up near the other's chest. "Thor is trying to help. He's one of the few people in this world who hasn't given up on you. Just let him—"

"No." Loki slid around him, speeding up when he saw Tony moving to stop him. "No, I said no, now leave me alone."

"Loki—"

Both doors slammed shut, anxious feet coming to a sudden halt as their path was blocked once and for all by the artificial intelligence overseeing the entirety of the tower. Thor wet his lips, grimacing slightly when he saw Loki's head start to bow.

"Dr. Banner, if I might make a suggestion—"

Loki turned his head sharply. "Enough, Thor. For once, do as I ask, and shut your mouth. Now." He inhaled deeply and exhaled with a somewhat frightening amount of care and precision. "Dr. Banner, things have taken an interesting turn. I would… _appreciate_… some time alone to… digest all that has been said." He repeated the earlier breathing exercise, swallowing hard as he spat out his request. "Open the door… _please."_

Bruce and Tony exchanged glances, but Thor gave them both a vigorous nod, swaying them in Loki's favor. Half a second later, the doors were opened, and Loki was able to walk through, disappearing around the corner as quickly as was humanly possible.

"He will not go to his room," Thor said softly, looking to the team leader. "He just needs to be alone." Then, his voice got even lower. "I've embarrassed him greatly. I know he would appreciate it if no one but Bruce spoke to him of this night."

Clint pushed himself off of the table, ignoring the request in favor of tactics. "We can't let him wander around unsupervised, though."

"Jarvis will keep an eye on him." Tony ran a hand through his hair and moved towards the doorway himself. "I need a drink."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Tony." Steve looked up from his watch, brow creased ever-so-slightly. "Fury just messaged me. We've got three personnel dead."

Just like that, Thor's adrenaline started increasing once more. "What?"

"It's the staff," Steve replied. "It's active."


	18. Chapter 18

He couldn't stop shaking.

It was his hands that shook the most, wringing each other this way and that and coming up to rake unsteadily through his hair, but his heart was pounding frantically in sync with them. Quivering, even though his body had seemingly turned to stone, even though he could feel his throat constricting and his jaw clenching tight, he was shaking. Whether it was from rage or fear or some combination of the two, he didn't know.

But he couldn't stop.

_…shouldn't have, what else was I supposed to say, could have told him I was angry at something else, I probably should have, he was wrong, he was so wrong, but he wasn't, I know he wasn't, should have told him I was only Mother's favorite because she felt the need to counterbalance Father's favoritism, no he wouldn't have believed that, no maybe he would have, no he wouldn't have, I don't even know if I believe that, I don't know what to think, but I do think, I think…_

Loki screamed, burying both of his hands in his hair and pulling until he thought his scalp would bleed, frozen right in the middle of the hall.

_I can't think._

It was too much. Too frightening, too unpredictable, too confusing. There were too many thoughts and feelings, all of them rushing over him like a series of waves with no space to breathe in between the blows. It hurt—it physically hurt to try and think, to try and identify one single emotion—and he could feel the heat radiating from his head and face, almost as if he had a fever.

_I have to calm down. I need to calm down, this is ridiculous. I shouldn't be this angry._

Taking a deep breath, he lowered his hands to his sides and started to walk again, wetting his lips and drawing in another lungful of air. He watched his bare feet, focusing on steadying the movements and quickly adapting a rhythm and mannerism he hoped would make him feel relaxed. It wasn't very effective, but he was able to grab a few thoughts out of the static, his gaze never wandering from the carpet.

_"Tell me, Loki… What is so terrible about that?"_

Loki leaned against the wall to his right, sliding down until he hit the floor.

_I don't know._

He couldn't answer the question, and he didn't know if it was the look on Thor's face when he said it or the lack of background noise enabling him to actually absorb what the other was saying, but that was the one line he couldn't get out of his head.

_He just wants me to come home._

That was all Thor had ever wanted. Back when they fought on the Bifrost, when they faced each other in Germany, and then again on both planets more times than Loki could count, it had been that same plea on repeat. Come home, come back, come home, come back—never ending—and once upon a time, it was infuriating and somewhat hurtful the way Thor constantly tried to drag him back to Asgard against his will, but now…

_"You mean I would give up the one person in this world or any other that I love the most?"_

Thor was actually trying to understand. He was trying to respect Loki's wishes. Even though all he wanted was for Loki to come home and be his little brother again, he was willing to throw that dream away if it meant Loki found a place to belong. If Loki would only be satisfied without Thor in his life, then Thor would leave.

_"…would I swallow my pride and allow every attempt at civility to be smitten by the hatred of another?" _

Pride had always been Thor's greatest weakness—the one thing that managed to get him into trouble more than all of his other faults combined—and he had swallowed it more than once in the past several months for the sake of maintaining their relationship. Loki had seen it. He had _seen _it. He had consciously recognized it and found it to be odd. It was there.

_"Are you saying I would even go so far as to risk my friendships and the welcoming arms of a planet I have come to love and respect as my home away from home just to get what I want?"_

Loki buried his face in his hands, inhaling and exhaling in slow succession, his pulse still pounding against his eardrums. His fingers trembled against his temples, stomach twisting into a smoldering knot of anxiety, eyes and nose burning with unshed, frustrated tears.

_He risked the trust and affection of his companions, his alliance with earth and the subsequent ease of access to his lover, the approval of our father, and quite possibly his throne… for me. Why?_

Tears burned tracks down the sides of his cheeks, sliding down into his sleeves and dampening skin and fabric alike. It hurt to breathe, and with every passing second, his body was rejecting the idea of self-control more and more, each carefully constructed method of deceit falling apart beneath the strain. His throat was tight and hard, his muscles had turned into rocks, and his bones were starting to ache from being bent into the awkward ball he had formed on the floor.

_Why?_

He threaded his hands through his hair and took a deep breath, opening his eyes and staring up at the ceiling lights with a grimace. His fingers were aching, no doubt from the strain they had been under, but he couldn't bring himself to stop wringing and pulling and fidgeting.

_Dr. Banner said they're not broken anymore, but this bloody ache… _Folding his arms over his stomach, he pressed his forehead to his knees and took another deep breath, drying his eyes on the fabric over his kneecaps. _Two weeks, then one month on Jotunheim, and now two months here… it's been almost four months since this entire mess started. _He clenched and unclenched his fists, gritting his teeth when the pain started to worsen. _Thor couldn't lie that long. He's not a good liar to begin with, and even if he could manage to pull it off for a day or two, there's no conceivable way he could still be putting up a front after all this time. _He wet his lips and swallowed, sniffing and clearing his throat alternatingly. _What if he's telling the truth? What if it's different now? What then? What does it change? What do I do? What now?_

He stood with a quiet grunt, weariness invading his body as an exhausted, nerve-wracking nausea settled in his stomach. "Jarvis, are you there?"

"I'm always here, Loki."

It was almost comforting to hear those words, never mind the fact that Jarvis was nothing more than a glorified computer program. "What are the Avengers doing right now?" He paused. "By which I mean, is there any reason for me to return to the meeting room?"

"I believe so. They are discussing the staff and its recent activity, Loki."

Loki's brow creased, eyes narrowing slightly. "Activity?"

"Yes. It is both active and dangerous. According to my records, it has claimed three—beg pardon, four—lives thus far."

Rubbing his face and eyes, Loki took one final, deep, calming breath and started back towards the meeting room, putting force into his steps and pushing the earlier questions and doubts from his mind. If the staff was active, then they would need him, and while he didn't trust or believe anything about anything at the moment, he knew he could get the staff under control.

"Should I tell them you are returning?"

Loki sighed, quickly tiring of the uncertainty in his stomach. "I don't know. I don't suppose it matters all that much." Spotting a mirror out of the corner of his eye, he stopped and quickly evaluated his appearance.

There wasn't much he could do while stranded in the halls, but he still dried his face and smoothed his hair down, making himself at least somewhat presentable before marching off down the hall again.

He rounded the corner with a brusque command and strode to the table near the center of the room. "Don't touch my notes." Despite the tone of authority, he refused to meet anyone's eyes. "You wouldn't be able to make sense of them, anyhow." He sifted through the available packets and selected the one that held information on environment and storage, leafing through the contents with a scowl. "For the moment, I'm entertaining two possibilities. First, it's possible the staff was preset to become active if it was ever assembled. However, I told you it was destroyed on purpose, and I fail to see why someone who destroyed a weapon would cause it to become _more _dangerous upon reassembly. Second, the staff could have tampered with in some way, shape, or form that set it off. I need to know everything S.H.I.E.L.D. did from the moment the staff was assembled until the moment it became active. Do we have footage of the room it's currently being held in? Because—"

"Why?"

Loki continued to stare at his notes, responding to Clint's question without a hint of emotion in his voice. "I don't know." He shook his head, grabbing another packet and adding it to the one in his arms. "I don't know, so don't ask, and don't make any snide comments. I can and will change my mind at any time."

Steve's hand moved in the god's peripherals, his voice sounding out and breaking the partial silence. "Tony and Natasha, find out everything you can on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s movements with the staff. Thor, fly to the hellicarrier and try to keep everyone away from that room. This thing needs to be given a wide berth, so make sure people are following protocols and doing just that."

Loki let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, concealing his relief by burying himself deeper into his files. Just as he had hoped, everyone was too concerned about the staff to grill him on his intentions or bring up the recent fighting.

"Hey, are you sure you're up for this?"

Everyone except Bruce.

"I'm not up for anything, but that's hardly relevant." Loki sighed, shaking his head and forcing out a sentence he was certain he would come to regret. "Tomorrow we can talk about… anything, practically anything, almost anything. I will cooperate, just… not now." He shook his head, painfully aware that he had just made a commitment he had no intention of following through with. _It doesn't matter, as long as I don't have to talk to anyone._

Bruce placed a hand on the god's shoulder, giving him a small smile. "As much as I would love to have that sort of free reign during our sessions, and as helpful as I think it would be for you, I'm not going to force anything. When you're ready to talk, we'll talk. You don't have to come up with excuses. Not for me."

Loki felt the lightest of smiles ghost across his lips, his head dipping slightly. "I know." He opened the folder on top and started to look through the notes he had written up less than twenty-four hours ago. "I know."

Bruce said nothing.

* * *

"Natasha, tell me about S.H.I.E.L.D." Loki replayed the footage of the fourth victim for the third time, his lips twisting into a scowl. "Are they closely associated with other agencies? Is there some sort of factor that segregates the staff that I am unaware of?"

Agent Romanoff looked up from her tablet and shook her head once. "S.H.I.E.L.D. operates independently, but compartmentalization is a big part of the system. Why?"

"Hmm…" Loki rewound the video once more. "I have yet to find anything connecting the four victims, and I thought perhaps they were connected by a group or subdivision of sorts. Who exactly was present when the staff was assembled?"

Tony slumped unceremoniously into a swivel chair and slid closer, joining the conversation. "All of us. Remember, you were here alone and got paranoid?"

Natasha and Loki both cast scathing glares in his direction, one to indicate lack of helpfulness and the other to indicate distaste and volatility.

"Geeze. Did the temperature drop a few degrees or is it just me?" Rubbing the back of his neck, he continued to speak. "There were six field agents, and then the six of us. After it reconnected itself, it was locked up and carted onto a waiting jet. I have no idea who saw it after that, and we can't get the footage because the plane is actually midflight somewhere over the Pacific."

Loki sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You didn't notice anything suspicious about anybody who was there? Were any of you arguing? Because it's possible that the staff realized it had been put together in the midst of a conflict and assumed it was being brought back into battle."

Tony and Natasha exchanged glances, but in the end, they both agreed no such conflict had been present. If there had been desire for battle among the group, whoever harbored it had kept it hidden well.

"Oh." Loki stopped, eyes flashing from one note to the next, thoughts forming too rapidly for his tongue to capture as the pieces started to shift and fall in place. "Oh, no, no. I had it backwards."

Natasha gave him a questioning look.

"Why was the staff broken?"

Tony spun on his chair. "Because whoever made it didn't want people to use it?"

Loki shook his head. "That's just the problem, Anthony. Even in pieces, the staff still grants immense strength and brings out the most depraved and hateful emotions humankind has ever known. It was broken intentionally, but it still serves its function, so there has to be something new here—something that isn't in my notes—that the staff can only do as a whole."

Smirking to himself, he grabbed the papers that showed the original rune carvings and started to read over it again. "This staff feeds on hatred, and it turns it into strength. That is its only purpose, so if that can still be accomplished, then there must be something more. I would speculate that this staff, when complete, not only feeds on hatred, but it seeks it out. It may not be entirely necessary for there to have been hatred present at the moment it was fixed, if in fact the fixed version seeks it out automatically at all times."

Tony nodded slowly. "So, someone creates a weapon to turn average guys into warriors that have both the strength and the guts to kill people by the dozens, but he wants to make sure that this weapon is going to be in the most useful hands. He builds in a little hate-detector and then lets the staff choose who should wield it and lead the others into battle, rather than letting several people try it out and judging their performance afterwards."

Loki gave the duo an enthusiastic nod, feeling a small surge of adrenaline at the chance to use his mind on a broader scale than usual. "Exactly." He turned to the redheaded assassin, concealing his glee with a clever smirk. "Agent Romanoff, you said S.H.I.E.L.D. works alone, most likely because they don't trust outsiders with their intelligence and supplies. However, I would be willing to bet they have many, many enemies all over the world. Suppose one of these enemy forces infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and worked their way up the chain of command. Some of them would no doubt be on the hellicarrier, and when the staff was brought in, it would immediately pick up on their animosity towards S.H.I.E.L.D. It would draw them in, send memories and emotions flooding through their minds before they had a chance to process what was even happening to them." He whirled around and faced Tony once more, causing the man to startle. "Anthony, this hate group in Norway, did the staff fragment kill any of them?"

The inventor blinked, confused, and shook his head.

"No, of course not." Loki's grin expanded against his better judgement. "Who would create a weapon that kills the one who _wields _it? Nobody, because it would defeat the purpose of itself. But these people had secrets, they had to make sure nobody knew they were working undercover, so when their self-control started to slip, they did what any good, well-trained soldier does. Natasha?" He turned back to her and extended a hand, awaiting the answer he knew would not disappoint him.

"They would kill themselves." She didn't even hesitate, walking around the table to grab the personal files on the four victims. "They would risk blowing their cover and revealing the presence of their organization as a whole within S.H.I.E.L.D. if they did anything else."

Loki nodded, feeling rather pleased with himself and refreshed by the mental stimulation. "Exactly. It wasn't killing anyone, it was calling warriors, and those who had something to hide were killing themselves. It was active not because of anything anyone did but simply because it was in one piece and its job was, at that point, to start looking for a new owner."

"Okay, that's great and all," Tony stood up and braced his hands against the edge of the table, "but we've still got two problems. One, that theory sounds good, but there still some evidence lacking. All of the agents were facing away from the cameras when they died, and we don't see them using any weapons on themselves, so until we have an autopsy, we can't really say whether or not it was suicide. Still, assuming that Loki is right, because this is his area of expertise, we're faced with another problem." He paused, looking from the raven to the redhead and back again. "How the heck are we supposed to stop it?"

Loki paused for a moment and then gave a slow, almost uncertain nod. "Yes, well… I haven't quite figured that out yet. Thor shouldn't be guarding it, though, he's too volatile. We either need to come up with a plan immediately, or someone more level-headed needs to go and replace him.

Tony gestured to the resident assassin. "Well, if we can't get an idea going, you can jet up there and take over for him." He put his hands on his hips, letting out a slightly strained breath. "So, for starters, can we break it again? Maybe do what the previous owner did, but instead of burying them in the middle of the woods where anybody can find them, we take each one to a different S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and lock them up."

"If we do have enemies in S.H.I. .," Natasha cut in, "then we would have to worry about three different people in three different places attacking us at once."

Tony shook his head. "It's no different than having it in one piece and the baddies getting their hands on it in one fell swoop, no assembly required. I admit they're both bad situations, but I think we'll be safer if we keep the broken pieces in three different facilities around the globe."

"Indeed." Loki nodded his head, leaning back against the table and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Neither plan is very desirable, as you said, but we know for a fact when people were hunting individual pieces, we were able to stop them. If we separated them into three different facilities, even if they did manage to get their hands on them all at once, we would still have that period of time before the moment of assembly to hunt them down. I like those chances much better."

There was a snort from above, and the trio all turned to look at the chuckling archer perched atop the cabinetry.

"What?" Loki snapped, indignant.

Clint shook his head. "You. I don't even think you've noticed."

Sighing, the god folded his arms over his chest. "Noticed _what, _Barton?"

The Hawk cracked another grin, leaning back and looking down at all three of them with a satisfied, almost victorious expression. "You keep saying 'we' when you reference The Avengers. Are you interested in signing up, Mr. Magic?"

Loki started, caught off guard and incredibly frustrated with the archer for his nitpicking comments. "If you ever come across something magical again, this staff in particular, I figure you will come to me for help. That's all I meant."

Clint only grinned. "Exactly. You've already made up your mind that if we ask you for help again, you're going to cooperate. You're actually having fun, aren't you?"

Loki sighed, turning to face the man fully and taking several steps in his direction, brow creasing with irritation. "Yes, Barton, I do enjoy using my mind to solve puzzles and riddles that others cannot. Mental stimulation is very refreshing—you should try it some time."

"Ooh," Tony sat down on the swivel chair again, turning his full attention to the interaction. "My money's on Reindeer Games."

Natasha glared. "Don't make things worse." Tilting her head slightly, she addressed the other two males in the room. "Boys, we don't have time for this. If you want to fight, do it later."

Clint and Loki glared at each other for several moments more, but finally, the latter turned and walked back to his position at the table, trying to push the myriad of cuts and remarks out of his mind so he could focus on the task at hand. "Alright," he sighed. "If we want to break the staff, we need a powerful sorcerer. I would normally be able to do it, but seeing as my magic is not currently accessible, you've got two options. Natasha, you could go to Asgard with Thor and allow my—allow the queen to break it for you, or you could have Thor tell Odin to return my magic, and I could do it here."

Tony arched his eyebrows, blinking once. "Really?"

Loki only shrugged, a subtle grin dancing on his lips. "Worth a try."

"So," Natasha once again centered their attention, "I'll be going with Thor to Asgard, and we'll be taking the staff with us. There, the queen will break it for us, and then we can hide the pieces."

Clint hopped down from his loft, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders. "Tony, you should start looking for this inside man, and if S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have time for the autopsies, I say get Banner to do it. Find out if they actually killed themselves or if it was the voodoo."

Loki rolled his eyes. "It's not voodoo, it's magic." He gathered up his notes, shaking his head and mumbling a mini-rant about human ignorance under his breath. "Agent Romanoff, you will need to take these with you. Show them to Queen Frigga, and tell her they're from me."

"That's right, you were a prince, right? So, is the queen, like, your mom?" Tony asked, ever the beggar of pointless questions.

"No, she was my second cousin. Of _course _she was my mother." Loki said no more on the subject, placing the papers into the assassin's arms and meeting her gaze evenly. "You cannot lose these. Without them, she will have to start over from scratch, and _you_ don't have that kind of time." And he hoped Clint had heard that very specific pronoun. "If you can, avoid going through Odin to reach her. Even with Thor at your side, Odin is wary of any and all outsiders, and he doesn't like mortals in Asgard. M—Frigga will not hesitate to help you with the staff, and she will be far more hospitable. Ask Thor, since you don't trust me, and he'll tell you the same."

Tony glanced at his watch. "Whatever it is we're doing, we need to get a move on. It's been almost eight hours since the staff activated and—"

"We've got another victim." Steve rushed into the room with a folder in his hands. "That's five deaths. Do we have a plan?"

"Yes." The answer came from a couple different people.

"I'm going to the hellicarrier. Keep your coms on." Natasha turned and strode out the door, leaving the four men alone to discuss the plan and carry out the rest of the steps.

Tony swiveled his chair once more and then kicked off the table, sliding across the room to the computer consoles with a mild sigh. "I'll be over here, hacking."

Loki glanced between Clint and Steve, choosing to sit down and let Clint explain the situation for him. _Thor and Natasha aren't here, Tony is pretty well distracted by his new project, and Clint will be talking to Steve for a little while. _That left Bruce as the only person without a task to keep him occupied, but he wasn't in the room, so it was a good opportunity for Loki to fade into the woodwork.

_I can't risk using one of the computers. They aren't that engrossed in their duties, and there are three of them. My notes are with Natasha, so I can't pretend to work. I suppose, for the time being, my best bet is to wander aimlessly._

He adjusted the sleeves on his sweater, fascinating himself with the fabric for a minute or so as his feet carefully guided him towards the exit. He couldn't imagine that every single door in the building was locked, and even the most insignificant of rooms would provide him with more knowledge about his environment. If he looked long enough, he was sure to find something sooner or later.

"Tired, Loki?"

Both feet came to a smooth stop, neither one betraying the miniature heart attack he'd just suffered. "To be perfectly honest, I don't know." _Is he suspicious, or is that his usual, caring nature coming out? _"My mind is a little weary, but… I don't particularly want to go to bed, no."

Clint glared. But then again, he never really lost that expression when it came to Loki.

Steve, on the other hand, seemed to think that was a reasonable explanation, and he gave a slight nod. "I definitely sympathize with you there. In fact, I think I'll join you. Clint, why don't you come with us? You can finish explaining the plan and maybe burn off a little energy yourself."

Clint looked between the enemy and the leader, frowning slightly but nodding his head.

_Too much, too soon. Steve, at the very least, doesn't trust me enough to leave me alone. At the most, he suspects that I'm up to something specific. Either way, the fact that he wants to come along is proof that there is information I can find while wandering about on my own, which makes it all the more imperative that I earn such a right as quickly as possible._

He was frustrated—discouraged, even—but his facial expression revealed neither emotion. Every little bit of information helped, and as long as he was both careful and patient, he would eventually come out on top.

_Eventually._

* * *

Steve startled at the sudden roll of thunder, his eyes turning towards the windows while Tony, Loki, Clint, and Bruce all began to slowly work their way into consciousness. It seemed their teammates had returned, hopefully with a broken staff, and a quick look at the clock told Steve they had been waiting for just under thirteen hours for Natasha and Thor to return.

"Please tell me that's not a normal thunderstorm." Tony pulled himself haphazardly to his feet, staggering blindly towards the kitchenette.

Steve shook his head in response. "I don't think so. I can see blue sky just a few blocks away." He walked over to the window and tried to get a better look at the sky directly above them, squinting against the filtered sunlight.

"It's about time." Tony grumbled, turning on the coffee maker and yawning loudly. "Does anybody want coffee?"

Every hand around the table went up.

"One for me, too." Steve waved his hand around to make sure Tony didn't miss him.

Grumbling, the inventor turned away from the group and started to go about his task, shaking his head and whining to himself about why he didn't do nice things for other people.

Steve only chuckled, smiling softly as he returned his gaze to the table and its occupants, blue eyes scanning each individual face with careful precision. He saw fatigue clearly, and he knew that there was a lot of tension leftover from the previous night's argument, which also meant everyone would be pushing everyone's buttons, even if they weren't doing it on purpose.

_Thor and Natasha are back, and the staff should be in pieces. If it is, we need to hide the pieces as soon as possible, and that shouldn't take the entire team. Some of us can start sleeping now, and later we'll all sleep. We need at least a whole day off. _His gaze lingered on the mischief maker from space, his lips twitching into the slightest of frowns. _Loki, especially._

Steve didn't think the god was planning to intentionally do anything wrong, but he was emotionally raw and mentally drained. That was dangerous, especially with a magical wrath stick in the mix.

"Good morning, my friends…" Thor stepped into the room with Natasha at his side, giving the group a halfhearted wave and a weary smile. "Mother has broken the staff, and Natasha spoke with Father as a liaison for Midgard. She requested that one of the pieces be kept in Asgard, which is why we have only two pieces with us." He lost the last couple of words to a yawn, one hand covering his mouth while the other grasped a staff fragment through a navy blue sash.

Natasha, who held her fragment with the assistance of gloves, masked her exhaustion more successfully than Thor, but it was clear that she was tempted to yawn right along with him. "We made an executive decision to leave the middle section on Asgard in the weapons vault, and as far as the other two pieces go, we think it might be a good idea to hide them at the North and South Poles rather than S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities."

Steve nodded sharply. "Makes sense. They're on opposite ends of the planet, aren't easy to get to, and nothing we hide there could be stumbled upon. And if S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated, this will keep them out of the enemy's reach."

Loki turned his chair around then, peering up at the trio with more interest in his eyes than his body could commit to. "If you're going to hide them there, you should put them in thermal cases. Magic is alive, and that means it gives off heat. It would stand out like a… very hot thing surrounded by a lot of very cold things."

Clint snorted against the table. "Nicely done."

"I'm tired," Loki snapped.

Steve glanced over his shoulder but quickly turned his attention back to the staff when it became clear things wouldn't escalate between the two. "I think taking them to the Poles is a great idea, and I think we should get it done as soon as possible. Dr. Banner, you don't have any sort of thermal casing, do you?"

Bruce adjusted his glasses, shaking his head back and forth. "I don't have anything like that, no, but S.H.I. . should. Although, I'm not sure how Fury will feel about us burying these things before his scientists get a chance to examine them."

Loki rolled his eyes, intoning dryly. "He can have a copy of my notes."

"Oh, that reminds me." Thor grabbed a leather-bound journal from underneath his arm and extended it towards his brother, smiling weakly. "Mother compiled all of your notes for you. She said you would be familiar with the sorting system she used."

There was a moment of hesitation, but then Loki took the book from his brother's hands and began to leaf through it, humming to himself. "I see." He closed it and held it against his chest, almost protectively, giving the thunderer a nod. "Give her my thanks when you see her."

Thor nodded, but he wasn't able to meet Loki's eyes for very long.

"So," Steve started, clapping his hands together. "Let's get this over and done with so we can get some shut-eye. Tony, get two of those thermal cases from S.H.I.E.L.D. Thor and Natasha, put the pieces on the table—I think we should avoid holding them as much as possible." Frowning slightly, he turned to look at Loki. "Speaking of which, those two pieces can't become one again, can they?"

Loki shook his head, rubbing the spine of his book idly. "No, they cannot adhere to one another. However, if they touch each other or are being held by the same person, their power and influence will get stronger. It's best to keep them separate."

Steve gave a quick nod and continued to hand out tasks to each member of the team. "Clint, check for any difficult weather that might get in the way of a flight pattern. Natasha, you should get some sleep as soon as possible. I know Director Fury has a list of missions for you a half a mile long." He cracked a small smile and got one even smaller in return, but she accepted the decision and left her staff on the table before leaving to meet the sleep requirements. "If possible I'd like Tony and Thor to take the staffs to their respective locations. You're the only two that can fly without the assistance of a jet, so you'll be the fastest at getting the job done. Loki and Bruce, I think the two of you should follow Natasha's lead and get some sleep."

"So, you want me to take this?"

"Dr. Banner, before you go…"

Steve saw it happen in slow-motion. Tony picked the fragment up from the table and turned to ask Steve for further instructions. Thor turned in the opposite direction to speak with Dr. Banner, the staff still in his hand, being held away from his body and the exposed skin of his arms. The simultaneous movement combined with the overly exhausted brains in the room made for a collision course only three of the rooms occupants could see.

Clint's hands tightened on his bow and arrows, muscle memory preparing him for the potential threat. Steve waited, confident that the two would quickly realize their mistake and pull the staffs apart. Loki, exhausted and distrustful towards everyone in the room, reacted on instinct and instinct alone.

And Loki was the closest person to the point of intersection.

"Thor—!"

It felt like a minute, but it was only a split second. Steve lunged forward and hit his knees beside the god, pressing down on his shoulders. Loki seized beneath the touch, his back arching up from the floor, hands clawing at his neck and shoulders in an attempt to tear the soldier off of himself. An arrowhead entered Steve's field of vision, and he realized Clint had jumped onto the table and was waiting to see if a knock-out shot was necessary.

"Loki, can you hear me?" Bruce called to the seemingly lost man, kneeling down across from the captain and placing a hand on Loki's forehead.

"Loki!" Thor bellowed, grabbing his shoulder and giving it a shake. "Loki!"

"Sedate?"

"No, not yet."

"He's not seizing anymore, but he won't stop shivering."

"Loki, can you hear me? Loki?"

"I didn't do it!"

Silence.

"I didn't do it. I didn't do it." Loki panted, eyes wide and unfocused, body quivering on the meeting room floor. "You don't know. I made sure. You don't know, you can't know. You can't."

Thor frowned, exchanging looks with the doctor to his right before trying again to reach his brother. "Loki, what do you think is happening? What are you seeing?"

"I didn't do it, Thor, I'm sorry. I didn't do it. I didn't… I…"

"Didn't do what?" the thunderer pressed.

"I didn't… I didn't… I didn't…" Loki inhaled sharply, screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head, the muscles beneath Steve's hands going soft. "I…" He opened his eyes, taking another deep breath and focusing on the top of Barton's arrow as if he were seeing it for the first time. "I… I did something… didn't I?"

"Actually, you keep saying you didn't," Tony quipped.

Loki blinked slowly, and Steve cautiously removed his hands from the god's shoulders, allowing the disheveled man to sit up and look around the room but still prepared to tackle if it became necessary.

"Dr. Banner… " Still disoriented, the god looked around until he saw who he was looking for, leaning closer to the bespectacled man and lowering his voice beyond what Steve could hear. He spoke rapidly in between unsteady breaths, his body still shaking and twitching on and off.

Bruce listened for a moment, and then he shook his head. He listened again and gave a quick nod, which was followed by another a few moments later. "Yeah, absolutely. Tomorrow?"

Loki nodded and moved out of the scientist's personal space, sinking back to the floor with a grunt.

Tony leaned over the group, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder and leaning down to offer some whispers of his own. "You get Loki back in his cell, and Thor and I will make sure these devil sticks are out of our lives indefinitely. Sound good?"

Steve gave a sharp, almost invisible nod and then reached out to help Loki to his feet. "Come on, let's get you to bed." He draped the young man's arm over his neck and began to walk towards the door, glancing over his shoulder with a questioning look on his face.

Bruce only smiled, giving him a thumbs up behind Loki's back, and Steve had to assume that the situation was under control. Whatever the situation even was, and whatever it was that Loki did or didn't do, it was under control.

_Stop thinking. We all need sleep. We can think and plan and talk later._

Facing forward again, he looked down at Loki's feet, frowning when the god seemed to have trouble walking.

"Hang in there, Loki."

Loki mumbled incoherently.

_We just need sleep._

* * *

Loki hit the mattress hard, hissing through clenched teeth as his muscles instinctively curled him into a ball. He could feel Steve's hands on his shoulders, squeezing and shaking the joints until he was satisfied that Loki was aware of his presence and hadn't gone into that trancelike state again. He found himself making slurred, guttural noises from time to time so the other knew he was listening, but for the most part, he ignored his surroundings and stared blankly ahead.

"Do you need anything?"

Head twitching to the right, the god sank further into the sheets and sighed. He didn't want anything. He didn't even want to be conscious at that particular moment—and perhaps never again, depending on what he had admitted to in his state of delirium.

"Alright… I won't be back for a while. Tell Jarvis if you need anything." Footsteps indicated the soldier's retreat, but then he spoke again from just a few feet away. "Loki, if the staff did something to you, you need to tell me. Either way, you'll be monitored for abnormal behavior for a while. Do you understand?"

Loki gave a noncommittal grunt, more concerned with the man's departure than anything he had to say. Thankfully, after a few moments of silence, his unspoken wish was granted, and he was left alone without need for further conversation.

_I didn't do it. I know I kept saying that, but what else did I say? What else did I do? Why did Barton have an arrow pointed at me? _He swallowed, recalling the words he had whispered to Bruce and realizing that had been a mistake, too.

_"I didn't mean it. I'll explain tomorrow, when we meet for our session. I'm innocent, I swear."_

It had been a stupid, emotion-induced move, plain and simple. He had panicked, unsure of what he had said and done but painfully aware of what he had seen. At the time, the only thing that mattered was clearing his name, but now he realized by doing so, he had actually made himself look more suspicious.

_I can't believe I did that. Even under the influence of the staff, it's so unlike me to blurt things out without thinking first. _He scowled, slowly sitting up and pulling his shirt over his head. _It's been buried so long, though, and there isn't any point in keeping it a secret anymore. I'm an enemy of both Asgard and Midgard, and many consider me to be a traitor.. Perhaps it's time for the truth to surface._

Kicking his jeans onto the floor, he tumbled back into the sheets and drew the comforter up to his chin. _No. Secrets are meant to stay secret. I've kept it this long, and there's no benefit in giving up now. I need to look more trustworthy, not less. _Of course, if he refused to tell the truth or even just to talk, he would lose a lot of that trustworthiness anyway.

_I can't do this right now. I need sleep. I'll figure something out when I'm rested and more coherent._

He folded his arms over his stomach, still aware of the fire burning there. That sickening, smoldering sensation of hatred that hadn't quite left his stomach since the staff had been against his hand.

"Jarvis, turn off the lights."

"Yes, Loki. Goodnight, Loki."

Within minutes, he was sound asleep.


	19. Chapter 19

Loki swallowed quietly, adjusting the position of his teacup for the sixth time and placing his rather fidgety hands in his lap. He could feel Bruce's eyes on him and see the polished, brown shoes in his peripherals, but he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the man's presence.

_I made a mistake. I made two, incredibly massive mistakes._

Bruce cleared his throat, and Loki tensed, waiting for the makeshift psychiatrist to speak. He didn't, though, and silence blanketed the room once more.

_It's too late to turn back now._

Clenching his teeth, he looked around the room—anywhere but Bruce's face—fingers twitching against his thighs. "So, I… Dr. Banner…" He exhaled loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"It's alright, take your time."

Loki dropped his head into his hands and sighed. "I'd honestly like to drop the entire thing, but I don't suppose we can do that, now can we?"

"It's not a good idea, no." Bruce smiled warmly. "You've met a lot of surprises since you arrived on Midgard. Maybe the outcome of this conversation won't be what you're expecting it to be."

Loki swallowed hard, wringing his hands and letting out a slow breath. "I highly doubt that, but I suppose it doesn't matter now." He took another deep drag of air. "I… haven't been completely honest with you."

"You established that, yeah."

"Doctor, this is not a laughing matter."

Bruce shook his head. "I'm not laughing. I'm simply pointing out the redundancy. Yesterday, you acted like you wanted help, and now you're fighting this session with everything in you. What changed between now and then?"

_Desperation. _"Last night, there was a chance the staff would come into contact with me again, and—"

"Nope, that's not it." Bruce adjusted his glasses and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. "There was a chance it would come into contact before it touched you the first time. It's supposed to make you feel angry and hateful, so you should have been less conscientious after it touched you, not more." He paused. "Do you know what I think?"

Loki swallowed, shaking his head.

"I think you saw something when you touched the staff that you reacted inwardly to, but you thought you reacted outwardly, and whatever it was you did, you felt the need to deny it."

_I thought I admitted to murder, yes. _The trickster chewed on his lip. "I did think I had done something, yes… I…" He shook his head. "Dr. Banner, you don't know what you're asking. This is Asgardian history. This is… ancient secrets of a long enthroned royal family. I've never spoken honestly about this to anyone, ever, and it's—"

"It's eating you alive. You said the staff triggered hateful memories, so you've got something dark buried deep but still raw enough to be triggered in a split second."

"Triggered by magic."

"Loki."

Sighing, the god rubbed his face, conceding beneath the weight of his advisor's expression. "Alright." His throat constricted. "I told you about Baldur the Beloved, yes?"

Bruce nodded.

_Don't answer or give me a break to collect my thoughts or anything. That's fine. _"Well, I told you… that we never found his killer or the one who would not mourn his death." He wet his lips, rubbing his hands on his legs again.

"Yes, you did."

"Well… I lied." There were at least fifty different phrases he could think of that would have sounded better. "Now, I—I didn't kill him. I didn't even hurt him, not really." He inhaled sharply to shut himself up, a shiver running down his spine.

_There's still time to change the story. You can still get out of this, you can still blame someone else. Nobody has to know what happened that day. If you go any further, you won't be able to turn around._

Every instinct he had was telling him to run. The Avengers couldn't be trusted, and it wasn't in his nature to accept responsibility or consequences even if they could. This wasn't right. The god of lies couldn't just start telling the truth. It didn't fit. It wasn't _right. _

"I… I was the one who… I didn't…" He clenched his teeth and sucked in air, spit flying between his teeth. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

Bruce blinked. "Hmm?"

"You should—interrupt or something!"

"Loki." Bruce steepled his fingers, wetting his lips before continuing, each word chosen carefully. "I know you're not comfortable here, but you've got to try and talk to me about this." He paused. "Have I ever used what you said against you?"

The raven stopped, gazing down at his lap with a look of contemplation. He slowly digested the past several months, recalling the times he had felt betrayed or antagonized, even if those feelings had later resolved themselves. Bruce had always remained, at the very least, a neutral party.

"…no, no, you've never…" He sighed, shoulders quivering. "When Hel said that every living thing on Midgard had to weep, we all embarked on a frantic trip to meet those demands. Thor and Mother and F—and Odin all wept as they spread the news. I… did not. I _could _not. I… Baldur was everyone's favorite. He was… nothing short of perfect in the eyes of our family and our people alike, and he never let me forget it. Specifically me, because I was different. In retrospect, it was probably because he knew of my true origins. I… I hated him… by the Norns, I hated him…"

Bruce nodded slowly, finishing the story for him. "So you didn't weep for him, and he stayed dead."

Loki nodded solemnly. "It was tantamount to murder. He had the chance to come back, and we couldn't find anyone else who refused to mourn him, so it was I and I alone who kept him dead."

The physician nodded again. "So, this caused family trouble for you?"

For a moment, he considered making the lies up from this point forward, but his lips were ahead of his mind, desperate to release some honest information for once.

"No." He bit his lip, fingers curling and uncurling slowly. "No, the family never found out. As far as Asgard knows, the story I told you the first time is the truth. No one knows who kept him dead. Nobody knows that I… that I didn't do it."

Bruce nodded slowly. "And when you touched the staff, you thought you somehow admitted to it. You thought Thor knew the truth now." He paused, taking a sip of his tea before continuing. "Loki, what did you see? Specifically, I want you to tell me what you saw when you touched the Berserker Staff."

Loki swallowed, leaning back in his chair and folding one leg over the other, attempting to remain indifferent and failing. "I… I saw the day it happened… not the murder, but when we were all convincing the earth to weep. I remember… one moment in particular… on a beach… some eight hours after we started…"

* * *

_Why? Why can't I do it?_

Tears blurred his vision, silently mocking him for that which he could force. His chest ached, but only from a lack of oxygen caused by running back and forth along either side of the Midgardian equator. He wanted nothing more than to abandon his mission and find a place to be alone. Not so he could grieve, but because he was so ashamed that he couldn't bear to look anyone in the eye.

"Jormungandr!" Boots kicked up the sand, emerald hues skimming the surface of the water in search of a familiar, blue-green ridge. "Jormungandr! 'Tis Loki of Asgard, I must speak with you!"

Waves rose and fell in the distance, white spray kissing the horizon as the large serpent appeared, slithering through the water towards him. He raised his hand and waved, preparing himself to put as much sincerity as he could into the following speech.

"Loki, you seem upset," the monster purred when he arrived at the shore, lowering his head to the sand and peering up at the god in a silent request for a head rub.

"It's Baldur," Loki said softly, complying with Jormungandr's wishes and stroking the greenish blue scales with practiced care. "He's dead, and we must get every living thing on Midgard to weep for him, or he shall stay that way indefinitely."

"I will weep for him, Loki, and all the oceans with me." Jormungandr blinked, transparent lids sliding over golden eyes languidly. "But Loki, you and Baldur do not get on well. Do you not fear what others will do if you are not successful?"

Loki chuckled softly, petting the snake again and giving a slight shake of his head. "I am a very talented liar, Jormungandr, and because I speak the truth in this particular case, it will be easier still. I did not kill Baldur, and I am doing what I can to bring him back. I am safe, I assure you."

"Very well." Purring, he lifted his head and turned back towards the ocean, blinking slowly towards the waters which he would have to forward the prince's message to. "I am truly sorry, Loki Odinson."

"As am I."

_No, I'm not. I wish I was, but I'm not. Thor spends his nights in the training hall, smashing everything in sight until he can no longer stand on his own two feet. Mother cries until her tears are gone and breath refuses to enter her lungs. Father stays in his room, staring at the wall and pretending he's deep in thought when, in truth, he simply doesn't know how to function. And I… do nothing. Nothing at all._

Nothing save beating his fists against the floor and cursing his own name because no matter how hard he tried to weep for his deceased brother, he couldn't. He couldn't feel loss, couldn't miss Baldur, couldn't feel that numbing ache that had never failed to accompany his sorrow.

_I hate him. He's worse than Thor, constantly impressing Father and finding silly reasons as to why I can't do the same—reasons why I'm unworthy. Belittling me because I can't fight the way he does, because I use magic instead. Telling me I'll never measure up to him and that I'll never have the throne because I'm unworthy. I never want him back. I never want to see him again._

His tears continued to flow, strengthened by the hatred and frustration directed both outward and inward, powered by everything he felt towards Baldur and leaving him numb to the only feeling that mattered.

Grief.

* * *

"Was that the first time you felt accused? Or that you had to lie to protect your cover?"

Loki shook his head. "No, of course not. I had an openly negative relationship with Baldur, and given my talents with magic, I was the first suspect for many people."

"Why would they suspect you so quickly?"

Loki chuckled, a bitter expression twisting his features. "I always thought it was because of how different I was. Lately, however, I've realized it was because I was never truly Asgardian to begin with."

"I thought that was a secret." Bruce took a sip of his tea. "Who all knew?"

"Anyone significantly older than myself. It wasn't as if it was planned, Doctor. My… my mother had not shown any signs of being with child, and suddenly, right after the end of the war with Jotunheim, there were two little princes running around."

Bruce nodded. "Less announcement, more adding two and two together."

Loki gave the man a dry smile. "Indeed. On Asgard, we believe that all Jotuns are born with the desire to kill. It didn't matter that I didn't know what I was, because it wasn't about knowledge or culture. In the minds of those who knew, murder was in my blood."

Still nodding his head, Bruce took another sip and summarized the trickster's words back to him. "So, most people who were old enough to know or guess your origins thought you had killed him. You were used to the distrustful accusations, but something about this specific interaction made you angry."

Loki snorted. He knew what it was—he had always known—but he didn't have any inclination whatsoever to share the answer with the doctor.

"Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to stare at the wall and make me figure it out on my own?"

Loki propped his chin on his hand and gave Bruce a lazy smile. "I'm going to make you figure it out on your own, obviously."

Bruce looked at him for a few moments, almost as if he thought the trickster would cave and surrender the truth without any further struggle. When it became apparent that, no, Loki wasn't going to do any such thing, Bruce put his fingertips together and started to hum.

"Hmm… let's see. Did you travel alone when you were on Midgard that day?"

Loki nodded. "For the most part. There was communication between the lot of us, but we only met together when we were done."

"Alright." Bruce was quiet for a while, lips pursed as he contemplated his information. "You said everyone wept willingly, but you probably expected that, so you had no reason to be mad at them, right?"

Loki gave a single nod.

"Hmm." Bruce fell silent once again, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. "How many guesses do I get?"

Loki scowled, but he couldn't really be indignant when he was the one who had turned it into a game of sorts. "Three."

"Hmm… were you angry because you had to travel all over Midgard asking people to cry for Baldur's sake?"

Loki shook his head. "I was irked at the most."

Bruce nodded slowly, taking a long sip of his tea. "Then… given the situation and the information I have on hand… I would have to say the person you felt the most anger towards was… you."

Loki choked, spitting his tea back into the cup.

"You didn't miss your brother," the doctor continued, overlooking the other's reaction. "You didn't want him to come back, but your family was suffering."

"Dr. Banner—"

"Now, hold on. I want a chance to explain my reasoning before you tell me how wrong I am." He took another sip and set his cup aside, steepling his fingers and leaning forward in his chair. "You didn't want him to come back, but you knew you had to weep for him for your family's sake. But you hated him. I mean, you really, really hated him, and it was hard to mourn his death and bring him back." He met Loki's eyes, even and fearless yet gentle and kind. "You were running all over planet earth by yourself, which gave you plenty of time to think. You had time to dwell on how badly your family was affected by his death; on how much damage he had caused for you, and when you tried to weep and couldn't, you had time to think about the implications."

"Selfishness," the fallen god breathed, fingers curling around his kneecaps. "I couldn't cry for him even as I watched my family fall apart, because every time I came close, I thought about myself and how I felt about him, and I stopped." Swallowing, he turned his head to stare at the far wall, startled by the words that had left his own mouth. "I kept him dead because I wanted him dead. And I hated myself for it, but I still wanted him gone too much to change my actions."

"And that's why the staff showed you that memory." Bruce frowned slightly. "Why that one, though? Why that specific memory?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders, leaning back in his chair. "I suppose it's because Jormungandr was the only person on earth I felt I owed an honest answer to. I hated myself in that moment more than any other that I had spent trying to mourn him. That's all."

Bruce stood up and walked to the small kitchenette, a thoughtful expression on his face. "So, why is this a problem today? If you've cut your ties with your family, wouldn't telling them the truth make them leave you alone?"

There was silence.

"Well?" Bruce turned away from the teakettle, a bag still dangling from his hand.

Loki shook his head. "I can't. Not now."

"You can't tell them, or you can't tell me?"

"Both." Loki swallowed hard, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back against the sofa in an attempt to look relaxed. "You said you wouldn't make me, so just drop it. I said enough for one day, don't you think?"

Bruce was quiet for a few moments, and then he gave a slight nod, returning to his teacup. "I understand." He finished mixing the beverage and then returned to his chair, taking a sip and letting out a contented sigh. "You know what I'm going to ask about next, though."

Loki only sighed.

"I have to be a bit more pushy about it, too, because of team security. They need to know that you're in control of yourself." Bruce picked up his clipboard, readying his pen and meeting the prince's gaze evenly. "You wanted time alone to think. Did you reach any conclusions?"

"No."

"That was a pretty quick reply."

Silence filled the room, and Loki began to fidget in his seat, picking at the skin on his palms absentmindedly. He wet his lips and took several breaths to calm himself, his thoughts turning into incoherent static as the stillness dragged on.

"I don't know." Loki heaved a sigh, rubbing his temple. "I… I don't know." He crossed his arms over his chest, watching the doctor carefully as he articulated something that was very foreign to him. "If you have any… advice… I would appreciate the… input."

Bruce pursed his lips, glancing up at the ceiling. "That's a pretty broad request. There was a lot said and done between the two of you."

Loki nodded. "I know."

"My advice would be to talk through your own thoughts first, and once you think you have an idea of where you stand, you need to talk to Thor. As much as I want to help, Loki, there are certain things that I can't do. One of them is speaking for Thor—or any member of your family, for that matter."

"I know." There was another break in the conversation, and Loki slowly got to his feet, walking towards the wall and then back again. "I don't have any thoughts to discuss. It's all noise." He turned around and went back to the wall again, quickly assuming a steady pace across the room. "Thor and I are… simply different. We've always been different, and there is… there are so many stories I could share, so many reasons I could give to explain why I'm bitter, but he's never done… _this _before, whatever this is. I don't know how to handle that, so I don't have an opinion on things anymore. It's as if… it's as if my brain can't handle the contradiction, so it erased every thought about the situation one way or the other." He paused, stopping in his tracks to turn and look at the man still seated on the chair. "Does that make sense?"

Bruce nodded, scratching down a few notes. "It makes perfect sense. Keep pulling thoughts out, even if they seem completely unrelated."

Loki ran both of his hands through his hair and interlocked his fingers, pulling on the back of his neck as he resumed his uneasy walk across the carpet. "I want to be angry at Thor, and yet, it's almost as if I don't have the energy or the willpower to do so. I would honestly prefer if I simply never saw him again and never had to think about him again." He looked at Bruce again, frowning. "Even this makes no sense to me. I don't trust you, so why am I telling you these things?"

"Maybe you've been holding onto them for too long. Most of your conflict with Thor has been building for a very long time. Eventually, the metaphorical dam is going to break." Bruce pushed his glasses back up the length of his nose. "Or maybe you're just trying to get it over with."

Loki shook his head. "Nothing makes sense." He looked back to the chair and felt a knot twist into his stomach. He was sharing his thoughts with an enemy—worse than that, a _human_ enemy—and he was genuinely seeking advice. Had he gotten that desperate, or were they simply getting better at worming their way into his mind.

_I can't do this. I can't talk about this—about anything. I need to go back to square one, when I didn't even tell him what recreational activities I liked or disliked. Protecting myself is more important than escape—escape can wait, if I expose myself, then it's done._

"Dr. Banner, how long have I been here?"

Bruce gave him a long, hard stare, checking his watch only after he had made his confusion clear to the god. "You arrived about forty-eight minutes ago."

Painting a warm smile across his features, Loki turned and walked back to the couch, sitting down and resting his hands on his thighs. "There's really no point in delving into this when there's only twelve minutes left. Perhaps we can talk about it another time."

"Loki… don't do this." For a moment, Bruce almost looked hurt, but Loki quickly realized it was a mixture of disappointment and pity on his face. Pity was unacceptable.

"Beg pardon?"

"You know exactly what you're doing, and you know that it's not going to do you any good. You're entertaining a cycle, one that will perpetually bring you back to this place and offer you the exact same choice."

Loki snarled. "But it _is _a choice, my dear man, and the decision I have chosen is the one that has kept me safe for nearly one thousand years. Why would I give that up now?"

"Because if you don't, you're going to destroy yourself." Bruce set the clipboard aside, leaning forward and meeting Loki's eyes unwaveringly. "Because every single time you choose to shut people out, you're setting yourself up for a fall much bigger than the one before it. Think about your past, Loki, think about the times you chose to lie to yourself and to others for the sake of keeping your sense of safety intact. Was it worth it? Was it worth winding up here, stranded with your enemies, stripped of your magic, and forced to obey people you consider to be beneath you?"

Loki stared. "Have twelve minutes passed?"

"No. So, tell me, was it worth it?"

"Yes."

Bruce sighed, rubbing his temple "You didn't even think about it. You're just firing off answers to shut me up and pass the time. Why?"

"I don't trust you," he snapped. "I don't like you, I don't like this situation, and I refuse to be taken in by your charismatic manipulation."

"Loki—"

"Has it been twelve minutes yet?"

Bruce stared at him for a moment, silent, and then he glanced at his watch. Loki was certain twelve minutes had not actually passed, but it looked like Bruce was ready to give him up anyway.

"It's been fifty-eight minutes since you got here."

"Good." He stood up. "Now, if you don't mind, I—"

"You're going down to the lab with Tony."

Loki frowned, clenching his fists. "What?"

Bruce gestured towards the door. "You don't want to talk to me about it, and you want to go back to square one. That's fine, but I'm not letting you go back to your room, because that is when you build your walls. When you're alone." Reaching out, he grabbed his teacup and took a sip, smiling at his suddenly unwilling patient. "So, now you won't be alone. You'll spend some time with Tony in the lab, and then you'll do your street work, and then when you come back, you'll have dinner with the rest of us."

There were no words in Loki's mind for several seconds after the man stopped speaking, and it was only after the new rules sank in that he was able to jumpstart his train of thought and reply. "You can't do that forever. Eventually, I'm going to be alone."

Bruce arched his brow, his tone casual and offhanded. "You sure? There are lots of Midgardian rituals you know nothing about, Loki. I've got a laundry list of things I can do to keep you from being by yourself."

Loki clenched his fists at his sides, swallowing hard. "If you choose to do this, you're only going to add weight to the dam, and when it breaks, I swear, I _will _take it out on you."

Bruce only smiled more. "That's exactly what I'm counting on, Loki."

* * *

Tony grumbled, throwing his goggles across the table and burying both hands in his hair. "Why do I have to babysit him? I get that Bruce doesn't want him to be alone, but why do I have to be the one to keep an eye on the Hatrack?"

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "Tony, this is a group project. We all agreed to help Thor. You're only keeping an eye on him until we hit the streets, and, assuming he hasn't snapped by then, he'll join us all for dinner. Then we all get to share the burden."

Still grumbling, the inventor returned to his schematics, clearing away a small space where Loki could sit and, if Tony was a very lucky man, not touch anything.

_Right. _

"Well, what are you waiting for?" He gave a quick gesture to the door and went to retrieve his goggles. "He's not supposed to be alone, or whatever, so get his sorry butt in here."

Steve offered a small smile and did as the billionaire asked, opening the door and ushering Loki into the room. Tony gave the two of them a scathing glare and snapped the safety glasses back onto his face, thoroughly miffed that his sanctuary of solitude had been invaded by Bruce's pet project.

Steve pointed to the area Tony had cleared for the god, giving him a light shove in that general direction. "You've never seen Tony work before. It's pretty interesting."

"I'm thrilled."

_Wow. He really is back to square one. _Just to get a reaction—and because he wanted to get back at Steve—he pressed a button on his latest upgrade that he knew was faulty. Sparks flew out of the arm in every direction, and the desired affect was achieved.

"Whoops," he said dryly, his tone making it very clear that he wanted Steve to go and Loki to be quiet. "I should write that down."

Steve glanced between the captive and the captor for a moment, his gaze ultimately landing on the latter. "Tony, don't do anything you'll regret."

"I don't regret things. My life motto is literally, 'I regret nothing.'" Tony picked up the arm again, this time to actually make an attempt at fixing it.

"Tony, this is serious." Steve was using that no-nonsense voice that never failed to make Tony want to kick something. "If I can't trust you with this, just say so."

Tony bit his tongue, leaning back against the counter and sticking a screwdriver beneath the plate that concealed the power core for the appendage. "That was very manipulative of you. I didn't know you had it in you, Cap."

"Tony—"

"I didn't say you can't trust me, so I think that means you leave now." He glanced up from his project. "I'll get over it, Steve. Just an unexpected change, that's all."

For a moment, it looked like the soldier was going to argue further, but in the end, he accepted the answer and left the two disgruntled men alone.

Of course, Tony wasn't really angry. Frustrated was a better word, and it wasn't really at any one person in particular. He simply needed his alone time, and he relied on having certain times and places where he knew he would be alone. One of those places had just been invaded, and it made him unhappy.

"Don't take it personally," he muttered, wanting to make at least some attempt at conversation. "I just wasn't expecting to be around people today."

Loki shook his head. "I understand that more than you know."

Tony said nothing, taking the answer as an excuse to sink into silence, his hands working meticulously at the jumbled mess of wires in his hands. _Loki can wait. I need to get this ray working again. _

He did want to help, though, if he even could. No one on the team wanted Loki to move backwards, because that would mean he was more of a threat. Not to mention Thor would turn into a wreck and no longer be a reliable source of help.

_Why would Bruce not want him to be alone? _He glanced discreetly over his shoulder, a slight frown turning the corner of his mouth. _He doesn't think Loki will, like, hurt himself or something, right? _

Tony could not deal with a suicidal god. He just couldn't. It wasn't happening.

_No, Loki wasn't suicidal when he got here, and Steve said Bruce's exact words were 'back to square one.' We kept Loki pretty much alone when he first got here, though… what did that enable him to do? Think? Does Bruce suspect he's got some sort of plan in motion that we don't know about yet?_

"Stop that."

Tony blinked, looking up from his work with a dumbfounded expression on his face. "Huh?"

Loki rolled his eyes and shook his head, disdain consuming his countenance. "You've attached and detached the same metal bracket eight times now. No doubt because you're trying to figure out why Dr. Banner has made such a sudden and unadvised change."

"Hey," Tony wagged a screwdriver at the other man. "If I wanted someone to tell me what I'm thinking, I'd call Pepper. I don't need that from you, too, Reindeer Games."

Scoffing was the only response Loki gave.

"So, are you gonna tell me?" Tony flinched, pressing a gloved hand down over the impending shower of sparks. "Because if you don't want me trying to figure it out by myself, you sort of have to tell me."

Standing up, the god crossed the room to the table and stared down at the project, a subtle curiosity tinting his features. "What is that?"

Tony sighed, removing his hand and letting the fuse have its fit. "That was the most obvious subject change I think I've ever seen. You really are back to square one, aren't you?"

Loki straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back and traipsing around the table with sickeningly sweet smile on his face. "For all you know, I never left square one. I am the god of lies, after all."

"I don't think so." Tony tore out the faulty wire as well as the fuse it was attached to, cutting a fresh one and trying a new connection. "If you did, you made too many mistakes."

"If a mistake is intentional, is it really a mistake?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't know. You should ask the guy who decided it was a good idea to gather his enemies together on purpose, somehow thinking this would make them easier to defeat." He raised his goggles, frowning at the other. "Oh, wait."

Loki said nothing, turning away from the counter and sitting back down on the chair that had been set aside for him. Tony watched him go and then returned to his work, trying and failing to actually focus on the equipment in his hands.

_This is why I need an empty lab. _

Whipping his goggles off, he tossed both them and the project aside, walking to the end of the counter where Loki was sitting and leaning forward, both elbows propped against the tabletop. "Well, since you've killed any chance of morning productivity, I think you owe me at least a couple answers."

"I owe you nothing."

"Wrong." Extending a finger, the inventor poked his adversary on the nose. "You owe me—and the Avengers in general—quite a lot. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not the type to call out favors day in and day out, but since the two of us are stuck together, I figure I might as well take advantage of the opportunity."

Loki crossed his arms over his chest, staring the man down for at least three solid minutes before finally offering up an answer. "It's as the soldier said. Dr. Banner believes my attitude is retrograding. For some reason, he thinks keeping me around you lot will stop this."

Tony drummed his fingers on the counter, tapping out an uneven beat as he considered what the prisoner had said. "Interesting. Poor Steve."

"Bed pardon?"

Blinking, the billionaire feigned confusion, gesturing towards the man sitting in his lab. "Well, you won't even call him by his name. He's 'the soldier' now. I thought you two clicked pretty quickly. I mean—" He shook his head, picking up a circuit board and pretending to lose himself in the metalwork. "You had that meltdown before Jotunheim, and he was there for you. There was that time you got drunk, and of course there's all the meals and the hours he spent visiting. He took—takes—good care of you." Shrugging, he placed a small chip on the far left corner of the board. "But that's what you get when you play nice with the enemy. I told him to keep his guard up, but he never listens to me."

Loki chuckled softly. "He tried at first, but he didn't get very far."

"Obviously." Tony stopped for a moment, shaking his head and putting his hands up as if he were making a display of surrender. "Okay, okay, but between us—did it still tick you off when he didn't come along to Jotunheim?"

"I don't understand." Loki frowned. "Why would that anger me?"

Tony held his hands up. "How should I know? He just really seemed to think he should have gone along with you. He tried to grab Thor before the, y'know, cylindrical shower of space glitter sucked you up, but you two were already gone." He ran a hand through his hair and grabbed a pair of pliers, sighing softly. "I guess that wasn't a tactical move, then. I assumed he was trying to stay on your good side, but it must have just been his golden hearted sappiness again."

For a moment, Loki looked as though he wanted to launch himself across the table and grab Tony by the throat, but that plan never came to fruition—thankfully. Instead, he gave a couple sharp nods and stared down at the floor, muscles tense and fingers twitching.

_I have to hand it to Bruce. This plan is genius and certainly more fun than talking over tea and scones._

Tony smiled.

_Interesting._

* * *

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say you've never done anything like this before." Clint wiped his brow and took a long drink of water before continuing. "Anything that can be salvaged goes on that truck, glass goes in that bin over there, trash goes in any of the big green bags, and metal goes into that giant pile for Tony to go through. He loves scrap."

Loki nodded slightly. "Simple enough."

Clint took another drink and gestured over his shoulder. "Make sure to keep drinking water. It's October, which means the northern hemisphere is getting cooler, but your body still needs water to function."

"Seasons." Loki made a face like he was tasting something sour.

Snorting, Clint moved towards the leveled block. "Yes, seasons. October is fall—or autumn, if that's what you please—and it won't change again until December." He set the bottle down and clapped his hands together, rubbing them a few times before pointing out the perimeters. "So, today we're working from that street corner to that one. All of the buildings here were demolished, and we need to get all of the waste out of the way before we can start rebuilding. There's really no rhyme or reason—just pick a section and start working."

Loki said nothing, but he nodded his head and approached the pile just the same.

_He's different._

Clint could tell the moment Loki and Tony came out of the elevator to join the rest of the group for work. Bruce said Loki had backslid, but Clint saw something more. It was true he was more guarded, and he was trying to reinforce the walls he had built around himself, but his train of thought was different. Of course, the archer didn't expect Bruce to notice this, because Bruce wasn't trained to get inside of people's heads and determine what course of action they would take before they took it.

_He's exhausted, but I think that's Bruce's intention. Loki isn't being given the time or space he needs to recharge himself, so the more fatigued he gets, the less he'll be able to maintain his blockade. But that's the solution, not the problem. Loki's motivation almost seems to be… fear._

"This is rather soft for metal… does it still count?"

Clint stepped away from his own mountain of junk and glanced at the object in Loki's hands. "Yeah. Some metals are really easy to manipulate, but they're still metals. Tony will want to have a look at it."

Nodding, the god lapsed back into silence.

_He's probably doing the same thing I am. Using the time and the lack of conversation to think. _Which, he assumed, he was supposed to prevent. _These past couple days have worn him down, and I'd bet a thousand dollars he wasn't prepared for his meeting with Bruce this morning. Too much exposed, too little time to patch it all back up again. But Loki is clever, and the more ground he surrendered, the more he realized he was losing his control over the situation as a whole. He got scared, closed up, and now Bruce is trying to force him to open up again._

Clint liked the plan, and he would have loved to help, but he had no idea how to engage the god outside of the mission. He had already given him his instructions, and unless Loki asked another question, Clint wasn't exactly the kind to make small talk. Especially with psychopaths that had brainwashed and used him.

_Maybe that's the idea, though. It would be new, and it would throw him off-kilter. _He sighed, dropping an armload of wood and plaster into one of the trash bags. _Worth a shot._

"So," the archer started, walking back to his section of the mess. "You don't have seasons on Asgard? It's just the same temperature all the time?"

Loki cast him a glance, suspicion written across his features. "Not exactly, no. We have different temperatures, they simply stay in the same, moderate range all of the time. It rarely goes below fifty degrees or above seventy-five."

"Do you have storms? Ones not caused by Thor?"

The god nodded his head. "Occasionally."

"I see." It was the only thing he could think to say. He didn't like Loki, didn't like small talk, and really didn't like making small talk with Loki. This wasn't his area of expertise by any stretch of the imagination.

"Barton, do you hate me?"

Clint blinked, a blank expression on his face. "What?"

"Do you hate me?" Loki repeated the question as if it were the most obvious conversational turn in existence. "Yes or no?"

Blinking a few times more, the archer tried to regain his train of thought, rubbing the back of his neck and squinting at the sky. "Well, it depends on your definition. I have tons of enemies and not enough time or energy to hate them all. Granted, you're in the top five, but… I guess I'm not really sure what you're asking."

Loki glanced up from where he was slowly accumulating an armful of shrapnel. "Anthony said something today that has me thinking about Jotunheim, and I recalled the advice you gave me before you left. You said they were orders, but not from Fury. So, I've been thinking about it, and I can't imagine any of your teammates would ask you to, seeing as they all understand your feelings towards me, and I wasn't aware that you answered to anyone else."

Clint sighed. _Like I said. Loki is clever. _

"In short, I want to know why you gave me survival tips that day."

Wiping his brow once again, he leaned over and picked up the scrap that Loki didn't have the arms for, jerking his head in the direction of the pile. "Work and talk." He started to walk, clicking his tongue as the words to explain himself began to fall together in his mind. "You had no idea what limitations your human body had—still don't most of the time—and I figured it would be helpful information. I don't like you or trust you, but that doesn't mean I want fire and brimstone to fall on you. That's more your style."

"But that doesn't make any sense." Loki deposited his load and started walking back, a scowl etched deeply into his features. "I am your enemy. You have no reason to help me."

"There's Thor, Bruce, and Steve, being on good terms with Asgard, and basic human decency for starters." Clint shrugged his shoulders. "It wasn't like I put my life on the line for you, or went out of my way to do some great act of kindness. I gave your some pointers that took maybe twenty seconds of my life to relay."

"But why?"

"Why not?"

Loki just stared at him.

"See, that's your problem, Loki. You are bent on vengeance and payback and getting even—an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, as we like to say here. You don't understand the concept of making life easier on someone you dislike because you want to see them suffer. I don't understand the concept of making life harder on someone I dislike because there's enough suffering in the world without me tacking on my two cents, and I've got better things to do with my time and energy. We have different worldviews, that's all."

For a few moments, Loki kept on staring and offered no response to the archer's words. Then, slowly, he began to open his mouth. "I… I think I understand." He paused, taking another long silence before continuing. "I suppose this means I could… to an extent, at least… expect some help from you, if I were to need it."

Clint frowned, finding the statement odd, but he nodded his head. "Like I said, I'm not going to go out of my way to be your best pal, but I don't mind helping out. I took care of you when you passed out on the sidewalk, didn't I?"

Loki gave a jerky nod, going very still and quiet.

Clint ran a hand through his hair, rubbing at the back of his neck and letting out a sigh. "We should get back to work. If you want to talk, we can do it on the way back to the tower." Feeling that the conversation had gone well, and not wanting to drag it out any more than he had to, he left the other man to his thoughts and got back to work.

_Well, dinner is going to be interesting._

* * *

"Do you want a book to read?"

Loki twitched, giving a quick headshake as his answer. Desperate as he was for an escape, he knew he wouldn't be able to focus on a book given the situation he was currently in. He would simply have to wait for dinner to be ready in silent nothingness.

"Well… shall I fetch your calligraphy set from your room?"

He shook his head again, pinching the bridge of his nose. "No, Thor. I am fine."

Thor turned away from the television and sighed. "You keep saying that, but you are angry with me again. I can tell."

Loki chuckled bitterly, shaking his head and staring down at his lap absently. "Believe it or not, it isn't anger." He swallowed, picking at his hands. "I finally understand why Dr. Banner didn't want to leave me alone."

Thor raised his eyebrows to indicate he was listening.

"He told me it was to stop me from building walls, but it was more than that." Loki leaned back, resting his head on the back of the couch. "If it was just to keep me from building walls, he would have put me with Steve. Instead, he put me with two of the people in this building who distrust me the most, knowing they would take advantage of my lacking defenses."

Frowning, the older of the two pulled his legs up onto the couch and faced his brother fully. "What did they do? Are you alright?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "Peachy." He took a deep breath and continued, making no attempt to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "Anthony spoke to me about Steve and his tenderhearted care for me, and Hawkeye explained to me the utter pointlessness of hatred, although the latter was more my fault than his." Scoffing, he dropped his gaze down to his lap. "Look at me, Thor. I don't even have the energy to get mad at you. I'm exhausted."

"Dr. Banner wanted you to be exhausted, then. He wants you to open up about something." Thor paused. "Might I ask what?"

Loki let out another sour laugh, drawing his knees up and letting his forehead fall against them. "I don't want to tell you, and ironically enough, that's the part he wants an answer to. Why? Why would I care whether or not you approve of a certain course of action I took years ago? That's the question."

Confused, the thunderer pressed a little further. "Well… why would you? I do not understand, either."

Loki looked at him. He really looked at him, staring long and hard, searching his eyes for any clues as to the contents of his heart. He examined the facial expressions and the body language as Thor awaited an answer, the trickster's own mind slow to calculate the proper response.

_I could tell him. I should. If he knew, he would abandon any brotherly affections he ever had for me, and that would give me legitimate reasons to stay away from him. He would run home to tell Odin, and then this circus would come to an end. Furthermore, Dr. Banner would get what he wanted and stop pursuing my past—hopefully._

"I..." He stretched his legs out again, getting to his feet and beginning to pace. "I can't believe I'm even saying this. Do you remember when Baldur was killed?"

Thor's brow creased with confusion, but he nodded all the same.

"You remember how Odin made a deal with Hel, and everything on Midgard had to mourn?" He wet his lips, not waiting for Thor's answer to continue. "You know that Baldur and I didn't get along very well, and even you had a handful of bones to pick with him, and—" He swallowed thickly, scratching his palms until he thought they would bleed.

_Don't act guilty. Use this to distance him._

"To make a long story short, it was me." He shrugged his shoulders, forcing an air of nonchalance. "Like I said, I didn't do it."

Blue eyes stared back at him, frozen in shock, wide and painted with confusion and hurt. Then came the blinking—that rapid, unnecessary blinking that came without tears and seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever. Thor's head started to shake back and forth slowly, his mouth hanging open ever-so-slightly.

"You… you did not mourn our brother's death?"

Loki clasped his hands together behind his back, looking down his nose at the other with both eyebrows arched. "I hated him. I had no reason to mourn."

Thor raked his hands through his hair and left them there, placing his elbows on his knees and taking a deep breath. "But—But I saw you. Loki, I saw you weeping that day. I _saw _you."

Loki gave the older Asgardian a grin, but his will wavered beneath the mask. "I'm Loki Liesmith. It's not difficult for me to cry falsely."

Thor stood up suddenly and closed the short distance between them, causing the younger male to glance over his shoulder in search of help, backing up as he did.

"Now, Thor—I'm mortal, don't forget."

"Tell me the truth, Loki." Thor grabbed him by the shoulders, the grip tight at first, but then adjusting to accommodate Loki's smaller, admittedly weaker form. "Look me in the eye and tell me again that you did not weep for Baldur."

Loki was able to meet his gaze evenly at first, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he found it took him several tries to get the words out. _This is what happens when you reveal a three-hundred-year-old secret. _"I did not—did not weep for Baldur. He—stayed dead because of me."

Thor stared at him, pain clearly written in his eyes. "Loki… how could you?"

"I think we both know the answer to that." Loki arched an eyebrow, but he could hold it for no more than a second, quickly losing his ability to feign indifference. "Odin and Frigga went above and beyond to give Baldur whatever he wanted. He never liked me, probably because he knew I was a frost giant, and I never liked him. He died, and I didn't want him to come back."

"But Mother." Thor's voice was thick with tears, his shoulders heaving with unsteady breaths. "If not for Baldur or Father or me, you should have brought him back for Mother. She was distraught, Loki, for days on end—"

"I know that," the younger snapped, his eyes narrowing into slits. "But she recovered, did she not?"

"Loki, this—he was family! Say what you want now about our relationship, but you knew no better at the time. He was flesh and blood to you—and it destroyed us, could you not see that? Was your hatred for him so blinding?"

Loki tore himself out of Thor's hands, stung by his own weakness and the knowledge that Thor must have let him go. "I am _not_ blind," he snarled, placing several feet between them, his pulse pounding in his ears. "I know what I am. I know what I did, and I don't need reminding."

Thor fell silent, mouth opening and closing with unspoken words.

Loki didn't say anything, opting to let Thor find his verbal footing first.

_It's done. He knows, soon Asgard will know. History has been rewritten. _

"Did you… do you… regret what you did?" Thor spoke cautiously but earnestly, the look on his face making it clear that he would have an answer to his question one way or another.

"Define regret," Loki intoned dryly.

Thor was quiet, but it didn't last as long this time around. Soon, he was nodding his head and muttering under his breath, his words eventually developing into audible speech. "That's all I needed to know."

It was Loki's turn to be confused, and he watched the blonde with careful eyes, waiting for him to explain. He didn't, though. He just sat down and let out a sigh, rubbing his temples and staring off into space as his brain processed everything Loki had just told him.

"Loki—" Thor looked up suddenly, giving the other a weak smile, "—thank you for being honest with me."

_Sentiment._

But he knew it wasn't. It was Thor taking Bruce's advice, trying yet again to reach out on a level Loki could understand and appreciate. He was being calm, he was talking, and he was keeping his temper under control. He was doing everything he could to meet Loki in the middle and make things work.

Five steps brought Loki back to the sofa, where he seated himself and took a deep breath, hoping against hope that Thor would have some sort of outburst and interrupt him. He wasn't that lucky.

"That day… I did weep, and it wasn't for Baldur, but it wasn't a lie." Inhaling again, he continued carefully, avoiding Thor's gaze at all costs. "Dr. Banner and I were discussing… my behavior that day, and I explained to him that… I was distraught because I was angry. I was angry with—with myself for refusing to bring Baldur back. I knew I was being selfish and cruel. I knew I was hurting my family, and yet… I repeatedly chose to do what was in my best interests, despite those other factors. It was… wrong, I know that, but to this day, I can't bring myself to wish he'd come back."

Silence filled the room, and the younger of the two gods began to wonder if he had revealed too much too quickly. He had essentially just told Thor that he didn't care enough about his family—even before everything went down the tube—to bring back its most beloved member.

"Loki… Father, Mother, and I love you. I know you have a hard time believing it now, but you shouldn't have felt the same back then. It… it hurts me to know that you caused Baldur to stay dead… but it hurts me more to know that you were too afraid to tell us the truth." Thor sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Baldur had his flaws, and I believe we were all aware of them. He was perfect in front of a crowd, but behind closed doors he had certain… attributes that were rather deplorable. I think it affected you the most, and I know it was hard on you. It was hard on me at times, as well, and I spent many sleepless nights wondering if my own tears had been real. But I never felt that Mother and Father would… would disown me or hurt me or anything of the sort. Did you?"

Loki swallowed, wetting his lips and staring at the wall, eyes flickering across the surface as though the words he wanted to say were written there for him to read. "I… I don't know what I thought. I thought... I wanted…" He stopped, turning to look at Thor, his stomach turning to stone. "If I tell you, you mustn't say a word in return. I don't want a lecture, and I don't want your pity. Are you capable of that?"

Thor nodded solemnly.

"Very well." Returning his gaze to the wall, he began to knead his hands nervously. "I wanted to make our parents proud, and… and I knew if they knew what I had done, it would be that much harder to prove myself to them. I feared that they wouldn't…" He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is so childish." He rubbed his face. "I feared they wouldn't love me anymore. That's all."

There was so much more to the story than that—so many wild emotions and thoughts he still didn't understand even after centuries of contemplation—but everything he had said was true. That was a big deal for him, and the sheer exhaustion of it all told him he needed to stop there and wait for repercussions.

Thor nodded slowly, waiting several minutes before opening his mouth. "I assume I can talk now, but not about what you just said. Yes?"

"Yes."

Thor gave another sharp nod, gesturing towards the door. "We should go see if dinner is ready yet. Unless, of course, you want to go back to your room. I'm sure now that we've talked, Dr. Banner will allow you to leave."

Loki turned to look over his shoulder, frowning at the door for a few moments before rising to his feet and stretching. "I'm here. I might as well join you."

Thor smiled, crossing the room to the door and opening it up. "Then let us go and feast. I believe the Captain of America is making steaks."

"Steaks? What are those?"

"It is a kind of meat. There are many kinds, cuts, and flavors. The Captain makes the best of steaks." Thor rubbed his stomach, walking down the short hall towards the kitchen with Loki at his side. "You were very wise to speak with me, Br—Loki. From what I understand, Dr. Banner was going to set up a slumbering ritual if you did not."

Loki frowned, his brow scrunching up as he mulled over the term. "I wonder what that would entail." Whatever it was, he couldn't imagine it would have been very fun for him, so he was glad to avoid it.

_This feels… different. It's very calm, and I don't feel like I want to punch the wall. Normally, conversations between Thor and I don't go this well… _He glanced up when they entered the kitchen, offering a small smile in the group's direction as Thor bellowed out his delight over the steaks. _Dr. Banner, you are a mystery. _

Perhaps the smartest and kindest mystery Loki had ever met.

* * *

Loki stared up at the ceiling, inhaling and exhaling in slow succession, every breath careful and precise. Any thoughts he'd had throughout the day—and there had been quite a few—were gone from his mind. He was completely focused.

_You're a clever man, Odin. You hid the seals well, but I'm getting close, I can tell. I can feel it._

It was faint, but it was there. Like an echo to his heartbeat, it pulsed deep underneath the surface, trying and failing to reach his veins. He listened and coaxed it, trying to lock onto a clear signal, just as he had been doing for the past several weeks.

_And it's only the first one. I'll be nearly dead by the time I've found them all, let alone unlocked them._

Exhaling slowly, he pushed the thoughts from his mind, focusing once more on the single echo calling to him from the darkness.

It was close, somewhere in his mindscape less than ten metaphorical feet away. His fingers twitched atop his stomach, a chill going down his spine as he brushed up against the pulse. He had to find the strongest point in order to find the seal, he knew, but just the fact that he could _feel _it again made his heart race.

"Sir, if the exercise is too strenuous, I would recommend that you stop."

Loki shook his head at the disembodied voice. "No. Not this time. I can do it."

Jarvis was referring to Loki's daily transformation on Bruce's request. Loki was not.

Breathing deeply, Loki tried to bring the pulse back into focus. It was waiting for him, ever faithful, and he reached out through the fog in a desperate attempt to latch on.

His body twitched, a dull ache forming in his chest as he drew closer to the lock Odin had placed. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, knowing the bond wasn't going to like his presence.

"Mm!" He jerked, pain tearing through his innards like a clawed hand, burning its way into his core.

_It's just a seal. It can't do any real damage. It's all in the psyche. _

Taking a deep breath, he reached out again, applying as much mental pressure as he could. The seal reacted the same way as it had the first time, agony coursing through his gut.

"Loki, I truly would recommend taking a break. You seem to be negatively affected by long-term exposure to your Jotun form."

"I'm fine," he ground out, pulling his lip between his teeth and biting hard.

"May I lower the temperature at least?"

"Y-yes, that would… be g-good." Loki took a deep, rasping breath and extended his mind again, a pattern of failure quickly developing as he struggled to break the seal.

_I can't… I can't._

His breath came in short, broken gasps, heat rising from his stomach and surging into his head. It was too much—the magic, the seal, the strain. He was overheating, which was more than a little uncomfortable given his condition.

"Alright… A-alright, I'll take a break."

"Capital idea, Loki."

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"You know what." Loki pulled himself into a sitting position with a grunt and wrestled the ring off of his finger, the metal band greatly disturbed by his magical excursion. "Taking a break wasn't my idea, and I don't need to be patronized about it."

"Of course you don't, Loki."

Loki tried to be angry, but he was smiling by the time he got his ring off and out of the way. "Thank you, Jarvis. I… I can always count on you to be honest. There is only one other person who even remotely comes close to that status, and even they have fallen short on multiple accounts."

"You are most welcome, Loki," the voice replied. "I enjoy your presence in this tower as well."

"Yes, I suppose it must be fun watching me. Boredom evokes strange behavior." He rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling softly. "I forgot about the microphones. I guess you've heard me talking to myself as well."

"Indeed."

Loki sighed, staring at the ring on his nightstand and contemplating his progress.

_I found the first seal. If I work at it slowly and carefully, I can break it, and that little bit of magic will be all I need to locate the others._

Loki looked across the room to his bookshelf, the Captain America novel catching his eye. It was wedged in between two books on civil rights Bruce had given him after his return from Jotunheim.

_Once I find the other locks, I just have to chip away at them with what little magic I have left. Soon enough, I'll have everything I need to escape._

"Goodnight, Jarvis."

"Goodnight, Loki."

He slipped beneath the sheets just as the AI killed the lights, closing his eyes. _I have to escape. Regardless of how they act, I don't belong here. I made myself a villain. I can't go back now._

"Loki, I have been told to inform you that Captain Rogers will be bringing your breakfast down earlier than usual. He demands that you not be grumpy at that time."

Loki cleared his throat. "I see. Thank you."

_I can't go back. I have to escape. I have to._

Cementing the thought in the front of his mind, the god of lies drew the blankets around himself a little tighter and drifted off to sleep.


	20. Chapter 20

"Levi."

Loki jerked at the sound of his name, so to speak, trying and failing to focus his gaze on the assassin's face. Pain contorted his features, one hand coming up to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Hmm?"

"You don't look good. Have you been drinking water?"

Sighing, the god rubbed his temples, a look of pure disdain taking over his features. "I passed out because I failed to drink water once, and I haven't made that mistake since. When are you going to get it through your thick skull that I know to drink my bloody water?" His voice rose in volume as he spoke, the pain in his head cutting his temper that much shorter.

Natasha arched an eyebrow, but if she was offended, it didn't show. "Then what's the matter?"

"It's nothing. Just my head." He massaged his temple again and tried to think of a more convincing explanation. "I really… it's just a headache."

Stepping closer, Natasha extended her hand towards his head, forcing him to press back against the side of the food truck.

"What are you doing?" he asked, wincing at the contact to his very hot, very sensitive skin.

"Checking your temperature. Just stand still." She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, cheek, and then neck. "You're burning up."

"I'm fine," he grumbled.

"Ignoring him, the Russian assassin slipped her hand beneath his shirt. "Why are you wearing long sleeves?" She pressed her palm against his side as she spoke.

"Because it's November," he muttered dryly.

"You're a frost giant, and don't tell me it's because you don't have your magic ring because you weren't in your Jotun form for the first several days of your detainment on Jotunheim." Natasha didn't give him a chance to reply, turning around and marching up to one of the Red Cross tents.

"Agent Romanoff!" Loki pushed himself off of the vehicle and followed her, painfully aware of the sway in his step. "Natasha!"

She turned around and walked towards him, a small rod in her hand. "Open up, and hold this under your tongue."

Loki frowned but, after a moment of hesitation, decided resistance was pointless and futile. He opened his mouth and did his best to comply despite his confusion.

"Rogers, Levi is under the weather. What's your status?"

It took the mischief maker a second to realize she was talking into the communicator on her wrist, but he was still incredibly confused by what she had said.

"I'm under what?"

Natasha gave him a sharp look. "Don't open your mouth until it's done."

He gave her a scathing glare but did as he was told, tapping his foot impatiently while she finished her conversation.

"I'm checking now." Pause. "Headache and fever so far. He's really out of it." Pause. "Will do."

Loki sighed, exasperated.

"Stop whining." She snatched the rod out of his mouth and held it up to what little sunlight the overcast allowed to come through. "104.1. You're in no condition to work."

"Natasha Romanoff, I swear to you, I am _fine._" He clenched his fists at his side, partly because of the pain he was in and partly to show his anger. "Although I doubt that I will be if we go to Banner's lab and stick me with a bunch of needles."

But the agent was already walking away. "No one's going to stick you with needles. It's probably just the flu."

Loki frowned. "What flew?"

"Flu. F-L-U. Short for influenza, a human illness." She never once slowed her gait, evidently very determined to get Loki back to the tower with speed. "Regardless, your body needs to rest."

Loki sighed, knowing it was pointless to argue. His body _was_ fighting something, and while he knew it wasn't the illness Natasha suspected, he was a far cry from healthy. It would be nearly impossible to convince the shrewd assassin otherwise.

"Keep up, Levi." Then, in a marginally kinder voice, "We're almost there."

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Hold your horses."

She chuckled. "He knows 'hold your horses' but not 'under the weather.'"

"Hold your horses makes _sense,_" he muttered. "When you need to catch up, you tell the group ahead of you to hold their horses. Under the weather is just ridiculous."

Natasha gave the lightest of smiles, and then lapsed back into silence. He let her, neither eager nor well-equipped to have a conversation. Instead, he tried to push his rebellious nerve-endings out of his mind and focus on his surroundings.

The city, he noted rather sourly, was already showing signs of the Midgardian holiday known as Christmas. Sale signs ornamented every visible window, and lights were beginning to show up just about everywhere. Everything was red and green and gold.

_Didn't they buy enough on the Black Friday?_

"So. Banner says you're doing well."

Loki let out a sigh and cleared his throat a few times before speaking. "Does he now? What exactly am I doing well at?"

"Talking." She shrugged. "He can't share details unless absolutely necessary."

Loki scowled. "I still don't see how talking fixes anything."

"You, of all people, should understand the power of words." Natasha led him into the Avengers Tower and started towards the elevator. "Talking helps your brain process the information you're talking about. In your case," she pressed the appropriate floor button, "Dr. Banner hopes it'll help you sort through some stuff—distinguish truth from lies."

"And that will make me a good person?" he asked, arching a skeptical brow. "Am I supposed to believe that?"

Natasha placed a hand on Loki's doorknob and stopped, pausing for a second before offering her response. "When you know who's telling you the truth, you learn to trust those select people. When you trust people, you let them help you, and you value their input." She turned to face him, eyes hard but still somehow tinged with sincerity. "That's how you become better."

Loki said nothing, pondering her words in silence while she unlocked the door. When she let him in, he remained quiet, wandering over to his bed and sitting down.

"I'll be back in about fifteen minutes. Don't do anything stupid." She turned to leave.

"Are you a better person?"

Natasha turned to look at him, her expression showing that she hadn't yet decided whether or not it was a trap, both arms wandering up and folding slowly over her chest.

"Are you better than you used to be?" he pressed.

For a long while, she didn't say anything, but then her jaw started to move, lips parting several second before any words came out. "I am."

He nodded slowly. "And… from a professional, non-subjective, non-emotional standpoint… do you think I _could _be?"

Once again, she was quiet, but he appreciated her careful consideration and said nothing to urge a response.

"I think you could." She stared him down a moment more and then turned to go. "You won't, but you could."

And the door closed behind her.

For a moment, there was nothing but his breathing and the throb behind his eyes to break the silence. Soon, however, he began to move around the room, changing into more comfortable clothes, picking out a book to read, and making himself at home on the bed. All the while, his thoughts raged.

_"You won't, but you could."_

_So, she's still suspicious of me—not that I expected any less—but she is warming up. She is at a point where she believes I could become something better. That's progress._

Loki lurched forward, a sudden pain searing through his gut. Both hands clutched at the skin beneath his shirt, trying in vain to ease the stabbing sensation, but to no avail.

_Not again…_

It seemed to come in waves, each one slightly less painful than the one before it, but still truly agonizing. It burned in his stomach, knotting the muscles and sending a surge of painful messages to his brain.

"Ugh…" he swallowed thickly, pulling his knees up to his chest and pushing his head down on top. His skin hurt, his head hurt, his joints hurt, his muscles hurt, his eyes hurt—he couldn't move an inch without feeling pain somewhere.

His heart pounded against his eardrums, blood coursing through his veins and serving only to hurt him further. He screwed his eyes shut, his head growing light, almost detached.

_Maybe I should lie down for a bit…_

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he found himself tumbling backwards, consciousness gone before he even hit the mattress.

* * *

"Well, it's about time."

Loki groaned, forcing his eyes open and trying to make out the face of the person standing over him. Bright light shone from the corner of the room, his eyes objecting to the rays immediately, burning pinpricks travelling through his eyes and into his skull.

"Hnn…"

"Here, try and eat some of this. Once you've got something in your stomach, I'll get some Advil for you."

Grunting, the bedridden god attempted to sit up but slumped back down after just five excruciating seconds. "C-can't…"

Two hands slipped beneath his arms and pulling him upright, one of them disappearing only to place a pillow behind him.

"How's that?"

He nodded haphazardly, finally recognizing the caretaker's voice. "N'tasha…"

"I didn't poison anything, don't worry."

That hadn't been what he was going to say to her, but it was a valid question that needed answering nonetheless, so he didn't bother to correct her. Not that he could correct her, even if he wanted to.

"Still think you're fine?" she teased.

He tried to glare in response, but the energy required to look angry was beyond him, so he settled for a mumbled 'no' instead.

"Try and eat some of this." She held the steaming bowl out to him, a light smile still dancing on her lips.

Shaking, he pulled his hands out from the tangle of sheets and took the bowl, trying not to spill the contents. "Do humans have this sort of problem regularly?"

Natasha shrugged, pursing her lips. "Every few years, give or take depending on their immune system, and other factors."

Loki shuddered—more from the cold than disgust, though both were definitely involved—and sniffed the yellow liquid in his dish. 'What is it?"

"Soup."

He cast her a withering glare.

"Chicken noodle soup. Just try it."

Still watching her carefully, he raised the spoon up to his mouth. His suspicion melted away almost instantly, surprise pulling at the corners of his eyes. "Mm." He took another bite. "Mm… this is surprisingly good."

Natasha's eyebrows shot up.

"Well," he cleared his throat, "you're not exactly a model housewife."

The Russian snorted, folding her arms over her chest. "You're not wrong. Soup is about the only thing I can cook."

Loki smirked. "As I suspected." He enjoyed being right. "Well, it's very good nonetheless. Although, someday, you should let me out of my cell, and I'll teach you how to make something new. Perhaps something Asgardian." He sipped the broth still watching her closely despite the lighthearted conversation.

"You know how to cook?" Her disbelief was almost palpable.

"Hasn't Thor ever told you I favored our mother?" Loki cracked a grin and downed another spoonful, growing increasingly grateful for the warmth his meal provided.

"No, he hasn't." She gave him a quirky, almost suspicious sort of smile. "You called her your mother."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, I meant to say the queen."

"No, you didn't." Natasha leaned back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other and continuing. "So, you took after your mom. Can you sew, too?"

He scoffed. "Of course I can. Do you think I brought that cape at the market? Or entrusted our incredibly stupid royal tailor with the task?" Shaking his head, he downed the last bit of soup and set it aside. "No, no, I sew my own robes, thank you."

Natasha just stared for a while, her very breaths inaudible as she scanned the trickster not once, not twice, but three times.

"What?" he snapped, shifting in the bedsheets.

She squinted. "Just wondering something."

"Wondering what?"

For a moment, she only stared some more, but then a smile turned the corner of her mouth. "I might tell you someday."

Loki rolled his eyes. "You ca—ah!" He doubled over, caught off-guard by the surge of pain in his abdomen and hissing loudly as he clawed at the skin.

"What was that you said about my cooking skills?"

Loki shook his head, biting down hard on his lip. "No, it's not—nausea, it's just—pain." Air whistled through his teeth, the pain crawling its way up into his chest.

Natasha's hands were suddenly on his shoulders, pushing him down onto his mattress and squeezing lightly around the base of his neck, rubbing the hardened muscles there. "Try to relax. Take a few deep breaths and describe the pain for me."

Loki's knees pushed against the blankets, trying to curl around the inflicted area. "It's just—it's like somebody's stabbing me. But it's also my skin—it's—it feels raw." He grunted, curling into a ball underneath the sheets.

The assassin's hand came down on his forehead again, the contact sending little sparks of pain all across his scalp.

"Your fever spiked." She frowned.

Loki's voice caught in his throat. _She can't find out. _"You don't think this has anything to do with me being a frost giant, do you?"

"I don't know. It's colder out now, so you would think it would be better for you, not worse."

The pain began to fade, ebbing away until there was nothing left but a dull ache and a quiet throb behind his eyes.

"Natasha… are you absolutely certain you didn't poison me?" He heaved a sigh and sat up, leaning back against his headboard once more. "I jest, but in all honesty, do humans truly get this sick for unknown reasons?"

She nodded, leaning back in her chair. "It's not really unknown. It's germs. Your fever is spiking very erratically, though, and that's not typical."

He nodded jerkily, clenching and unclenching his fists a few times to test the mobility. "Should we wait, or do you intend to act immediately?"

She shook her head, gaze absent. "No, we'll wait. Keep an eye on it."

"Alright…" he grunted slightly, shifting his weight and subsequently aggravating his sore muscles.

_They just have to continue thinking that this is an illness. I'll take medications without a fuss, and I can pretend they are helping, but they can't dig deeper._

Glancing up at the resident spy, he gave a quiet but stern request. "Don't tell Thor."

"I'll have to."

"He'll fuss. Keep him in the dark, it's less messy."

Natasha shook her head. "He's not the same, Loki. I'll tell him you want him to stay away."

The god sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "Very well. If you absolutely must."

"I must."

Loki sighed but didn't say a word. It was unlikely Thor would be able to figure out the real reason behind Loki's illness. He had never been very good at magic, and he would no doubt believe it was just another human illness.

Because it was magic causing the sickness, not human defects. It was his body trying to adjust to the sudden presence of magic released in his veins. Because Loki had cracked the first seal, and magic was slowly seeping into his body, saturating every single fiber that had been deprived up to that point.

He had cracked the first seal, and once his body adjusted, he would use what little magic he had to blow the rest of the blockage wide open. Then it was only a matter of waited for, or creating, the right opportunity.

_Game, set, match._

* * *

"Captain Steven Rogers, this is absolutely unacceptable. I went them out—_now_."

Steve smiled, looking over his shoulder at the disgruntled Asgardian. "One strand of each."

Loki massaged his temples, letting out a sigh.

"It's Christmas, Loki. Get in the holiday spirit." Steve taped the end of the garland to the doorframe and carefully ran it up and over the opening.

"It's absolute silliness, that's what it is. A holiday for fools. Honestly—"

The door swung inwards before he could finish his sentence.

"Captain of America! I require your assistance." Thor held out a tangled strand of lights. "This cord has bested me in both wit and strength. I know not how to secure victory against such a formidable adversary."

Steve stared at Thor for a solid ten seconds before he realized the thunderer was joking. Both men quickly dissolved into laughter, leaving Loki to sigh in an overwhelming mix of annoyance and exasperation.

"As I said, 'tis a holiday for fools."

Snatching the lights from his fellow Asgardian's hands, Loki made himself comfortable on the bed and began to tackle the knot.

Steve smiled. "So, Thor, what do you think of Loki's room?"

Thor tensed, looking to Loki as if he expected the younger to kick him out—which Loki had considered, if only for a moment—but the trickster's eyes were only filled with curiosity.

"Yes, Thor, what _do_ you think?"

Sensing a trap, the blonde began to walk around the room, examining everything. "I think it is very nice. Organized and tidy, per the usual, and the color scheme is… pretty. It, uh, it has got a bed. He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know. I don't understand interior design. I am sorry."

Loki smirked. "Well, at least you were honest."

Thor, encouraged by the positive response, walked closer to the window and let out a winsome sigh. "I can say, however, that your view is much better than mine. It's stunning."

Loki tossed what he had managed to untangle to his left. "I agree. It's a very nice view."

For a moment, there was silence, Thor unsure as to how far Loki would let him push, and Steve not wanting to increase the apparent tension in the room.

"One strand each, Captain." Loki got to his feet and handed the lights to Thor. "Your lights are untangled, so I want the both of you to _go._"

Thor nodded and took the strand with a quiet word of thanks, exiting the room with one last smile over his shoulder.

Steve stepped away from the door and grabbed the strand of lights he had brought. "Loki, why don't you hang these up yourself? You've been stuck in bed for what? Five or six days? It might do you some good to get on your feet and work with your hands."

Loki gave the soldier a skeptical brow raise, but he took the lights and the tape nonetheless. "Very well."

"Speaking of which…" Steve met the god's eyes, staring intently and silently telling the other what would and would not pass for an answer. "How have you been feeling so far today?"

"Better." That was a lie. "I'm still having bouts of nausea, and my head hurts like a bilgesnipe, but I don't feel dizzy or lightheaded, so I believe it's safe to say I'm on the mend." So, so, so many lies.

"Well, that's good. Keep me posted, alright?"

Loki only nodded, eager to see the man go, and after a quick thumbs up and a friendly smile, that's exactly what Steve did.

As soon as the door closed, Loki's façade crumbled, and while he didn't do anything that could show up on footage, his face contorted with pain. Moving across the room to the window, he tried to focus on hanging the lights, using the task as an excuse to show the cameras his back and allow his hand to claw at his stomach.

_It's almost over…_

The crack in the seal had broadened—with an incredible amount of painstaking work, of course—his magic now seeping through at a constant and steady pace. His human body was buckling beneath the weight of its new power, even with the advantages offered by his Jotun skin. Antibodies were trying to destroy and expel viruses and bacteria that didn't actually exist because his human DNA couldn't comprehend the presence of Asgardian magic. But it would adapt.

It had to.

_Patience is a virtue with which I am well acquainted. I've waited this long._

Loki sighed, grunting softly as he forced his hands to begin the task of hanging Christmas lights in the window.

_Once I have my magic back, I'll have to find some sort of vessel I can use to travel through a doorway to another realm. Alfheim, maybe? I have a history there; they like me._

He taped the last section of lights to the window and leaned against the sill, gritting his teeth.

_But what then? I could attack any one of the realms that have done me wrong but… Midgard and Jotunheim alike have shown mercy and kindness. And suffering. So much suffering… and for what? I can't… Midgard and Jotunheim… all the little children and the siblings I have yet to meet. The Avengers, my mother, Raghnall—even Director Fury. I don't trust a single one of them, but the hatred—the loathing—is just… gone._

Loki tilted his head, watching the traffic and crowded streets down below. The city was so alive, and Loki couldn't find it in himself to want it dead. He had no qualms about taking whatever he needed in order to stay out of prison, but the desire to watch them burn was absent, a hollowed apathy taking its place.

_I could go after Asgard but…_

No. He could hate it until the end of all the nine realms, but he wouldn't attack it unless he was completely out of other options. Or at least until his mother had passed away.

_What will I do after my escape?_

And as he stood there, he realized he didn't know. The Avengers hadn't earned his trust, but they had certainly succeeded in softening his edges. He didn't know what he wanted. All he knew was that he wanted to get out. He wanted to travel again, visit old friends, see if there was more truth in his past than he had originally believed.

He wanted freedom.

Beyond that, he had no clue.

* * *

"Peaches?"

Loki let his head fall against the doorframe to his room, vexation overwhelming his composure as the conversation dragged on. "Yes, Barton, I want canned peaches. What part of this don't you understand?"

"Uh, the part where you want me to take you down to the local grocery store and buy you the most random food item in the history of random food items for no apparent reason." Clint rubbed his face and ran his hands through his hair, letting out a loud sigh. "Why are you asking me, anyway? Why not ask Steve or Bruce—or anybody else who actually enjoys being around you?"

Snorting, the god of lies shook his head. "Oh, I would absolutely prefer such an arrangement. However, if I know you as well as I think I do, had I asked one of them, you would have thought I was up to something."

"I think you're up to something, anyway," the archer shot back. "Why do you even need peaches? You get three square meals a day—I'm sure eventually there will be peaches."

Loki sighed, pushing off of the woodwork and shoving his hands into his pockets. "They're not for me."

Clint only stared. "Nope. More confused now than ever."

"Christmas is a time of gift giving, correct?"

Clint's head bobbed up and down.

"Well, I know someone who absolutely loves canned peaches, and seeing as Christmas is less than a week away, I thought it would be appropriate…" He let his voice trail off, giving the other a look that implied what level of disappointment he would express if Clint still didn't understand.

But Clint only stared at him, lips still and brow furrowed in contemplation. He seemed to consider the request Loki had brought before him, looking down at the carpet and tapping his foot as thoughts crossed his eyes right to left and then back again.

_Please. _

"Alright. We'll run to the store quick and get some peaches." He threw his hands in the air and turned on his heel, walking down the hall towards the elevators. "Why the heck not? It's Christmas."

Allowing the lightest of smiles to tease at his lips, Loki tailed his ex-slave into the elevator, down to the ground floor, out the door, and onto the streets. He didn't say a word, not wanting to push the limits for fear he would lose whatever ground he had just gained. Clint was helping him, and there was no point trying to fix a plan that wasn't broken, so he kept his hands and thoughts to himself, only speaking when Clint urged him to do so.

"So, are you going to tell me who this mystery person is? Because, last I checked, there's only six people you really have contact with, and none of them are that excited about peaches." Clint cupped his hands around his mouth and blew into them, steam billowing from the space between his gloves.

Loki sighed, pulling his coat around himself more tightly. "I don't suppose it's a good idea to refuse to answer." Looking down, he focused his gaze on the cement, using the distraction to help force the answer from his lips. "Brianna."

Clint turned his head sharply, surprised. "Brianna? Brianna Leitholf?"

"I don't know her last name, but if you're talking about the little girl who was abandoned by her mother, then yes." Loki refused to look at the man to his right. "She loves canned peaches. Stupid girl hurt herself trying to dig through old, collapsed buildings in search of them." He could still feel Clint staring at him, but he ignored it in favor of observing the mayhem around him.

"Yeah, that's her." Clint said nothing for several moments, and then approached the topic from a different angle. "You still haven't explained why you asked me."

"Yes, I did."

"I don't buy that for a second, especially now that I know what you really want them for." Clint's hand brushed against Loki's arm, his fingers digging in just enough to get the god's attention. "Why me?"

Loki sighed, pulling out of the other's grip instinctively. "You are one of the few people I know who won't see this act as some sort of…" he waved his hand, gesturing his lack of an appropriate word, "…benevolent and soft-hearted gesture."

Clint arched an eyebrow. "What would you call this, then?"

Loki glared. "I owe her. Nothing more."

"You owe everyone in this city. I don't see you being anybody else's Santa Claus." Clint grabbed the other's arm again, this time pulling on his sleeve to direct him towards the store. "How do you owe her more than anybody else?"

Loki smirked, following the archer into the building and down the aisles. "You ask me such a logical question, as if you think I'm actually being logical about this. I'm a psychopath who invaded your world and killed thousands of your people—you expect me to make sense to you?"

"Yeah, I do." Clint gave him a sharp look, making it clear he wouldn't play the game.

"You're such a bother." Loki glanced around, almost as if he thought the girl was standing behind him, and lowered his voice a few notches. "I took her mother to the Red Cross tent, and thus am the reason she was sent to the hospital. Had I not intervened, her mother would have stayed with her. That is all."

Scowling, Clint looked over his shoulder at the man hanging back. "If you hadn't intervened, her mother would have died."

"She would have left Brianna believing she had a mother who loved and wanted her. I would have preferred that. I couldn't care less whether or not that woman survived the ordeal." Loki spoke evenly, holding Clint's gaze for several moments before breaking eye contact in order to search for the desired Christmas present.

Clint hummed, keeping in step, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't you think you're judging pretty quickly?"

"You are defending her?" Loki glared, anger welling up in the pit of his stomach.

Coming to a stop in front of a large wall of canned fruit, Clint shook his head and replied. "No, of course not. But you destroyed a city and killed thousands of innocent people—as you just recently brought up—and yet, we're trying to learn your side of the story and give you a second chance." He shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe the woman knew she was a terrible mother and thought Brianna would have a better chance if she were up for adoption."

Loki only glared, occupying himself with the cans and refusing to answer. He didn't care what the mother's reasons were, and he didn't care whether or not they were valid. He didn't like to see Brianna without a family and a home. It was too similar to his own situation. It made him angry, and that was where his compassion stopped.

"How many of those are you going to get?"

Loki looked up from his armful of items totaling seven and blinked, a wry smile curling the corner of his mouth. "I might want to try some for myself."

"I'll tell Steve to put them on the list."

Loki only rolled his eyes. "What harm can I do with peaches?"

"I wouldn't trust you with a pool noodle, Levi." Clint shook his head, glancing around and then leaning down to grab some of the cans from Loki's arms. "Don't talk about your attack. I'll explain later."

Nodding ever so slightly to indicate understanding, Loki claimed another three cans and rose to his feet, moving back towards the front of the store. For a moment, he considered asking the man what a pool noodle actually was, but then he figured if he wasn't supposed to talk about his attack on New York, he probably wasn't supposed to indicate that he was in any way alien, either.

"So, we swing by the orphanage, drop these off, and then we go home." Clint glanced over his shoulder. "You're not going to be able to talk to her. You know that, right?"

Loki nodded. Brianna would be sound asleep, and he didn't like the idea of waking her just to say goodbye. "I told you. I owe her."

"Right. Like Natasha owed me?" he arched an eyebrow, walking up to a large machine and swiping the first of many cans across the glass square. "Because you know what that actually means."

Snorting, Loki handed over his items, trying to think of some excuse to explain his behavior and coming up blank. "I don't need to tell you my reasons, Barton. I am giving her a gift, that is the bottom line, and that is as far as your hand in this goes."

"Looks like I…" he pressed the Pay Now option on the screen, "…pushed the wrong button."

Loki deadpanned. "You think you're hilarious, don't you?"

Clint gave the god a stupid grin and swiped his plastic card, finishing up the transaction and handing both of the bags to Loki. "I am hilarious, thank you very much."

Blinking, Loki looked down at himself, startled by the weight of the combined objects and slightly disturbed by the way his muscles were reacting to it. He knew the seal was straining, running on its last legs, keeping no more than a sliver of magic behind its crumbling walls, but his body was still adjusting, and the longer it was taking the seal to break, the worse it got.

"Levi."

Loki looked up suddenly, swallowing and shaking his head. "Sorry. I got distracted."

Clint gave him a long, hard, incredibly suspicious stare. "Uh-huh." Pointing over his shoulder, he started walking backwards down the sidewalk. "This way, Santa Claus. Let's get this over with."

Head bobbing, Loki followed close behind, mumbling under his breath, "Let's, yes."

_Tonight, I am breaking this thing once and for all._

* * *

"Merry Christmas!"

Loki ducked down, trying to escape the impending reindeer antlers the inventor was trying to stick on his head. He was unsuccessful, and Steve snapped a picture before he could tear them off, a broad smile decorating the soldier's face more brightly than any of the lights in the room.

"You're all obnoxious." Crossing his arms over his chest, the god surveyed the room and let out a resigned sigh. "Why must I join you for Christmas dinner? I do not celebrate this holiday where I come from, and I do not want to celebrate this holiday where I am now."

"Reindeer Games," Tony sang, wiggling his fingers in the other's face for the sole purpose of taunting him. "Get it? Because I gave you the antlers. You really are Reindeer Games now."

"Yes, Anthony, that is absolutely magnificent. Now, shut up." Returning his gaze to the doctor who had brought him down, he pressed for an answer. "Dr. Banner, please tell me you have a good reason for dragging me into this mess."

Bruce only smiled. "Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill. We're going to have a party, play games, laugh ourselves sick, and eat delicious food until we can't see our feet anymore."

"Ham!" Thor bounced up from behind the counter, where he was keeping a vigilant eye on the baked dish in question. "It is a most delicious kind of meat, Loki, and it must be experienced on this, the day of Christmas."

Loki groaned, running his hands through his hair and letting out a long, languid sigh of defeat. "You aren't going to let me leave, are you?"

Bruce, Tony, Steve, and Thor all smiled at him.

"No, I thought not." Reaching out, he grabbed a candy cane and twirled it between his fingers, giving the group a scathing glare. "Merry Christmas, mortals."

Steve laughed, snapping another picture and hastily shoving the device in his pocket so he could return to the task of preparing Christmas dinner. "Loki, why don't you give me a hand?"

Raising both hands, the god began to applaud less than enthusiastically, his face deadpan.

"Ha. You're funny." Steve pointed a spoon at him, quickly realizing his mistake and pulling it back when brown sugar syrup started to drip onto the floor. "Natasha says you can cook. Goodness knows Tony and Thor can't, and I think Dr. Banner is still bringing some gifts up from the lab. So…" He trailed off, turning back towards the stove and pointing next to himself.

Loki bristled, thoroughly offended at the man's forward attitude. Had he gotten so casual with these mortals that the soldier thought he could order him around on a whim? Loki was a prince, born of one noble bloodline and raised by another. He didn't just _cook _on command, especially not for those that had imprisoned him.

"What would you like me to do?" he asked, stopping beside the man and looking at the various dishes in the making. "I get to lick the spoons."

"Of course." Steve smiled, handing him a knife and an orange potato—or at least, that was what it looked like. "If you can chop those into thick slices, and then cut those slices in half, that would be great."

Loki's brow shot up, emerald hues scrutinizing the man in front of him. "You're giving me a knife. Is that wise?"

"You tell me." Steve gave him a bright smile, sliding another sharp instrument over the surface of the potatoes that had yet to be peeled. "Can I trust you with a knife?"

He glared. "Of course not." But he didn't cut anything other than the vegetables he was given, tossing the chunks into the brown sugar sauce when Steve directed him to do so. He wasn't really this docile, of course, he was simply playing them. Now that he had broken the seal on his magic, it wouldn't take him too long to bring it back full-force and strengthen it enough to escape. He had to have as much of their trust as possible by then in order to make said escape clean-cut and flawless.

Or at least, that's what he told himself. He honestly didn't know what to think about his relationship with the Avengers anymore. He didn't trust any of them—probably not, anyway, although maybe he potentially did—but he certainly couldn't say they were faceless enemies. Not after the last five, nearly six, months of confusing and unexpected developments in his life. Steve was a good man with a pure heart and a unique sort of honesty, courage, and strength that Loki respected. Tony was a far cry from an enemy, although he would make a worthy adversary most days, but his attitude was so carefree and nonsensical that it was hard to see him as cold opposition. Natasha was professional, but there was no hatred or malice driving her actions, and even Clint was able to put aside his personal feelings for the sake of accomplishing a goal, which Loki both appreciated and respected. Then of course, Bruce.

Bruce was the closest thing to a friend Loki had had in a very long time, and while Bruce, like every other Avenger, was still a potential threat and not to be trusted, if the god absolutely had to trust someone or ask for their help, it would be Bruce. Bruce, who didn't bat an eyelash no matter what Loki put on the table before him. Bruce, who never lost his patience or rose his voice or started to show even the slightest hint of green around the eyes. Bruce, who smiled at his antics and grinned when he tried to fight. Yes, Bruce was as close to a friend as he believed he would ever have again.

But Loki had to escape.

Because even when things were like this—calm and civil and happy—they would come to an end. When the lights went out, the Avengers would be free to come and go as they pleased, and Loki would be guarded by endless layers of security. He couldn't live like that. He couldn't—he just couldn't accept that. He wanted to be able to run through the streets at any hour he chose, no matter how ridiculous, wearing whatever he wanted and screaming at the top of his lungs, "I am Loki, of Asgard, and I do what I want!"

Not that he would actually do that, but he wanted to have the _ability._

Freedom. Freedom was key. He wouldn't settle for anything less than that.

_I deserve freedom. If I could just get my magic back, I could fix the damage here in a matter of months, and then I wouldn't owe them anything. They're doing this to me. They're keeping me here for their own sick amusement—no._

Another voice, yet somehow still his own, cut into the conversation, reprimanding his mind for wandering down such a path.

_Emotional damage is not so easily fixed. Think of Brianna. Think of Klaufi and Bjolan and Lini. Some people will never recover from the things I've done, no matter what I do or how much time has passed. I can't pay back my debt, not in full, and freedom is a privilege that I forfeited when I chose this path. I knew that._

But did he know that? Did he really have any idea what he was giving up when he first touched down on planet Earth? Could he have foreseen any of this?

"Loki, are you alright?"

Startling, the god looked up from the cutting board, vaguely aware of the fact that he hadn't actually been cutting anything for a minute or so. "I… lost in thought. I apologize."

Steve frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"I… I think I'm fine." Shaking his head, he began the process of playing up his distress, swallowing the guilt that came with his lies, clenching and unclenching his fist around the knife. "I just don't…" he glanced around and lowered his voice, "I don't understand you and your teammates. I am the enemy, the god of lies, I—I _attacked _your planet and killed your people. Why am I cooking Christmas dinner with you?" There was a certain sincerity to his words and tone, his eyes searching the Captain's face for any signs of suspicion.

"It's hard to explain, but the bottom line is that you aren't a threat like this." Steve shrugged. "We can extend more opportunity because there's a limit to how much damage you can do."

Loki shook his head. "But _why?" _That's the reason why you don't have to fear me, but it doesn't explain why you would go out of your way to give me a second chance. Every time I've asked, I've been told that I'm not a threat and you have the resources and capabilities, but none of those are good reasons. They explain why you didn't say no, but not why you _did _say yes."

Steve looked at him for a long while, both hands frozen mid-peel, face displaying an odd mixture of sympathy and reluctance. "We said yes because we're the good guys. We believe in second chances, in helping those who don't deserve or want to be helped, in putting ourselves in harm's way to give someone an opportunity normal people can't or won't. We said yes because we believed it was the right thing to do, and that alone makes it worth doing."

Loki stared at him. "You are something else, Captain. You baffle me."

Steve gave him a smile and handed over another potato. "I take it Asgard isn't big on forgiveness."

Smiling bitterly, the god shook his head. "No, and I don't suppose they should be."

"Well, yeah, after the whole 'destroying Jotunheim' thing, I can imagine." Steve tossed over another peeled ingredient and smiled to indicate he was joking.

"That wasn't illegal." Loki cut through the pile he had neglected during his daydreams, quickly catching up to the super soldier. 'To be perfectly honest, I don't think anyone on Asgard cared about the attack, save for Thor, and he only cared after his trip to Midgard. Prior to that, well… he less than loved the Jotuns and their planet."

Steve listened quietly, nodding when Loki had finished speaking. "I see. So, what did you do that was illegal in Asgard?"

"I tried to kill Thor."

"Oh, is that all?"

Loki jumped, startled by the inventor's unexpected intrusion, but never got a chance to reply.

"In his defense," Thor began, moving closer to the kitchen area, "All Loki did, initially, was lie to me. It was still wrong—" he cast a brief glare in the trickster's direction, "—but Loki did nothing to entice my friends to commit treason."

"Heimdall, on the other hand…" Loki's expression soured. "I botched that one rather badly."

Thor snickered, which got the attention of just about everyone in the room, given the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the stares only caused him to laugh harder, delaying his story as he struggled to get the giggles under control.

"Loki," he gasped, wiping his eye, "do you remember the time I lost Mjolnir in a bet?"

Loki's cheeks darkened as soon as he realized where the conversation was going. "Thor, I would really prefer we keep that little incident to ourselves."

"But this is a time of merriment! That is why they say Merry Christmas."

Loki continued to glare. "It might be a merry memory for you, but I had to dress up as a woman—"

"So did I!"

"—which I do not find amusing."

Tony's eyebrows shot up, and Loki kicked himself for using that bit of the story as an example. "Wait, what?" The billionaire seated himself at the island and leaned over the counter, grinning from ear to ear. "You have to tell it now."

Loki groaned but did nothing to stop the thunderer from launching into the tale most joyously.

"'Twas my own fault, how it all got started. I was foolish enough to wage Mjolnir in a silly bet, and—as has always been my luck—I lost."

"Sorely," Loki interjected.

"Well, I do not know about—"

"You had your backside handed to you." He smirked. "And then you came to me and begged for help, because the conditions he had placed on its return were nigh on impossible."

Thor pouted. "Loki, it is my tale. I wish to tell it."

Loki only rolled his eyes.

"So, as I was saying, I went to Loki with the terms my adversary had set. These terms were complicated, namely because they did not involve Loki or myself. What the giant wanted was for the Queen of the Valkyries, Freyja, to marry him."

"She was opposed to the idea," Loki quipped.

Steve slowly lowered his face to his palm, shaking his head back and forth and mumbling about the stupidity of the bet in the first place.

"As I was _saying," _Thor cast both men a dark look and then cleared his throat to continue. "I knew I would have to trick him, because there was no way in the nine realms that Freyja would be swayed, and because Loki was, is, and always will be the best at tricks, I went to him for help."

Tony's grin broadened. "I like where this is going."

"Yes, Anthony, this is the part with the crossdressing." Loki rolled his eyes for what had to be the fifth time. "We decided if the man wanted a bride in exchange for Mjolnir, a bride was what he would get."

"Loki!" Thor snapped.

"Fine, fine, carry on."

By this time, Bruce, Natasha, and Clint—he didn't know where the latter two had come from, and their silent appearance quite honestly scared him—had been drawn in, the group circled around the end of the island.

"So, as I was saying, Loki used magic to make me look like Freyja and himself like a handmaiden. We ventured into the belly of the beast, having every intention of stealing Mjolnir back but running into a few snags along the way." Thor's arms and hands began to move as he spoke, the god growing more animated as the story went on. "We had to actually go through with the wedding, because the marriage vows had to be legally binding before he would take his guards away from where I put Mjolnir when the bet began. Loki and I were able to keep the disguise up through the wedding and into the feast, which was a miracle in and of itself, given that I ate almost three entire pigs and drank four kegs of mead."

Bruce blinked. "Wow."

"Once the feast was partially underway, he took me—not knowing, of course, that I was me or that my handmaiden was Loki—to see where Mjolnir was being guarded. He was an arrogant, foolish man, and as soon as his guards were out of the way, we dropped our disguises and made off with Mjolnir for the skies."

"Wow." Tony stared for a moment or two and then shook his head with an incredulous laugh. "Please tell me that this was a normal, everyday thing for you. I'll be so disappointed if it wasn't."

Loki gave a small smirk. "Well, the crossdressing part was new, but Thor was always getting into trouble, typically with Mjolnir."

"Me? I think you mean _we, _Loki. Remember when you got us trapped on Alfheim looking for magic crystals? Or the time you tried to sneak Jormungandr into the palace?"

Loki scoffed. "Please. That's nothing compared to the bilgesnipe hunting trip disaster. I almost lost a leg because of you and your stupidity."

Steve gasped, pushing off of the countertop with a single exclamation, "The food!"

Loki turned and quickly jumped back into the cooking process, all thoughts of his childhood escapades vanishing as he followed Steve's orders and tried to help the soldier get things back under control.

It took a little while, but they were successful, and the team—plus Loki—enjoyed a Christmas dinner that was nothing short of a feast. Throughout the meal, Loki and Thor continued to regale them with stories of their past conquests and sore defeats alike.

Then it was time to open presents, and everyone gathered around the tree—save for Loki, who watched from a few feet away, curiosity evident in his eyes—and exchanged presents.

"Bruce, this is for you. This one is Natasha's. This is… Loki, where did you—oh." Steve approached the god and handed him a small, brightly wrapped package. "Merry Christmas, Loki." He smiled broadly. "I'd wait until Tony gives you his before you open it."

Loki stared, blinking slowly, utterly speechless.

"Oh, right!" Tony hopped up from his seat on the floor and grabbed a somewhat large gift from the tree, carrying it over to the man with a grin. "Happy 170th day of captivity."

"Here's a couple from me, too." Bruce handed him two presents. 'The bigger one is more of a gag gift, but I think you'll enjoy them both."

Loki kept staring, still blinking, still speechless, at the growing pile of gifts in his arms.

Thor gave the baffled man a light smile. "My gift is silly and sentimental, so I put it in your room. I figured you would prefer to open it in private."

Loki just kept staring, mind buzzing with flurried thoughts and yet completely blank.

_This is good this means they trust me but why what have I done to deserve gifts from any of them that doesn't matter take advantage of it this is perfect you just got some magic back and escape is just around the corner you need this but they care they care and I don't know why—_

"I… thank…" he glanced down at the parcels again, "…thank you."

They all smiled, murmured words of welcome passing through the silence, and then the merriment continued, as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

"Alright, let's see what we got here."

"Tony, you didn't set this thing to explode or something, did you?"

"I never use the same trick twice, Steve, my dear."

"Liar."

"I, too, have received such gifts from you, Tony."

"Just open the presents already."

Loki slowly, almost cautiously, sat down on the floor and began to open the first present. It was the one from Tony, and after he saw what it was, he was confident that the idea to give such a gift came from Tony as well.

_Technology._

He had absolutely no idea what it was, but he also had no inclination to ask. He was certain that, later on, in the privacy of his room, he would be able to figure out what the device was for. So, setting the box aside, he picked up the soldier's gift and started to pick at the paper corners.

Peeling away the parchment, he discovered the gift to be three plastic squares stacked on top of each other. One read, 'daughtry baptized,' while another read 'ThePianoGuys2,' neither of which meant anything to him. Between them, a thinner case held a disk with a message scripted across the top in what appeared to be genuine handwriting. It said, 'Loki's Mix Vol. 1,' and while the trickster didn't understand what it was, it was obviously custom made for him.

Taking a deep breath—quietly, so as not to draw attention to himself—he moved on to the next gift, the supposed gag from Bruce Banner. Somewhat nervous, he peeled back the wrapping paper to reveal a book on Norse Mythology and a bright yellow sticky note.

_Just in case you need help_

_recalling the details._

_-DB_

Loki smiled, now understanding the concept of a 'gag gift' and making a note to get the man back at a later date. Then he moved on to the next gift, discovering a black box of watercolor paints beneath the veil of gold paper.

"I know you really like working with acrylics, so I thought I'd get you something new to try." Bruce smiled, holding a recently gifted Hulk plush in his hands, a tag dangling from the ankle.

_You gotta learn to love_

_the Other Guy! He gets lonely._

_-Tony_

Loki blinked and then looked back to his own things. "Yes, thank you." And that was where he ran out of things to say. What else _could _he say? His enemies, enemies he was plotting against at that very moment, had gotten him presents for a holiday he didn't celebrate. For once, his silver tongue wasn't so silver. It was more like brass or copper, and he didn't know what to do to fix it.

"Captain, I would like to retrieve something from my room and require a thumbprint. Would you accompany me?"

Steve nodded and rose to his feet, adjusting his brand new Captain America baseball cap as he started towards the doorway.

"So, did you like the gifts Tony and I got you?"

Loki nodded. "Oh—yes, thank you."

Steve smiled. "You have no idea what they are."

"Not a clue."

"That's alright," the soldier laughed. "We figured half of the fun for you would be figuring out what it does and why it needs those extra parts."

Loki nodded. They weren't wrong.

Coming to a stop outside Loki's room, Steve opened the door and waited. "Do you want any help?"

"No, I've got it." Stepping into the room, he made a beeline for his nightstand and pulled out a tablet he had been using to sketch and paint on. Granted, the paper quality wasn't the best, but he was a prisoner with limited resources, so they would have to get over it.

"Here," he mumbled, pulling out a sheet and walking back towards the hall. "Take this."

It was a painting—mostly abstract—with various shades of blue swirled and splotched against a white background with a crisp, black quote intended specifically for the Captain.

_"Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position, or_

_prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service, and character."_

_-William Arthur Ward_

"Loki, this—"

"Not a word. I am only evening the battlefield. I don't want to be indebted to any of you." He looked at the man long and hard, daring him to say another word on the subject. Because in all honesty, he had no idea why he was doing this. He didn't know why he made the stupid pictures in the first place. At the time, he assumed it was his own artistic, slightly odd way of processing his thoughts, but now—

Ducking his head slightly, he pushed past the soldier and made his way back to the living room, letting out a disgruntled sort of noise as he began passing out paintings to each individual in the room. "I despise debts," he grumbled, staring each of them down the same way he had Steve. "I've given you all a gift now, so we are all even." He jerked his head in the direction of Natasha and Clint. "I am one up on the two of you, and you are more than welcome to keep it that way."

Then, having nothing much else to say, and not entirely sure whether or not he actually meant that which he had already said, he sat back down on the floor and started to leaf through his new book. He didn't read it, though, only scanned the words with vacant eyes, slowly running over each image in his head and wondering if he had made the right choice in handing them over.

They were all generally the same. Loki had thought of each individual as he painted their picture, using colors and shapes to describe them before placing a quote that he felt fit their character in bold lettering somewhere on the page.

"Loki," Bruce looked up from his painting, a faint smile painted across his lips, the rest of his expression stunned. "Thank you. I really appreciate this."

Loki only nodded, trying to keep his attention on his book as much as was humanly possible. It didn't work, random words about horses and golden hair and shining steeples all filtering through a fog in his mind, but he still tried.

"Well, it's no can of peaches, but it's not half bad, either." Clint gave him a cocky, sideways grin and ignored the confused expressions his teammates offered. He folded the image up and tucked it into his jacket.

Loki's head continued to bob up and down, eyes never once leaving the pages in front of him. He felt as though everyone were watching him, his heart rate climbing higher as the mortals continued to examine their paintings. Natasha said nothing about her painting, but from the parts of her expression he could actually see, he assumed it was to her liking. Bruce and Steve both exchanged comments about the color choices and blending methods, and Thor simply sat and grinned at the portrait like an idiot.

"Thanks, Reindeer Games."

Loki glanced up at the uncharacteristically soft voice, his eyes wandering over to where the inventor sat in some sort of stupor, staring at the picture in his hands with a faraway look in his eyes.

Loki specifically remembered Tony's picture. It was composed of a bright and vibrant red and a deep, somewhat muted purple. While the two colors did little to complement each other with sharp lines, the god-turned-artist had done an excellent job of blurring the borders until there was another color between each section, something like a burgundy or wine.

_"Success in life comes to those who simply refuse to give up; individuals with _

_vision so strong that obstacles, failure, and loss only act as teachings." _

_-Silken Laumann_

He had had his hesitations about using the quote back when he originally painted it, and then again when he went to grab it from his room. Would Tony think of himself or of Loki? Would he be touched or grow suspicious, wondering if the god was determined to overcome the obstacle that was the Avengers? But now he saw that he had, indeed, made the right choice in handing over that gift in particular.

Tony had more important things to do than watch the security footage and keep up with Loki's habits, and they had never worked on the streets together, cleaning up or handing out food and water. On top of that, Loki had murdered one of his friends, and the Battle of New York nearly cost the man his life. Tony was cordial enough, yes, but he kept his walls up around Loki and would have been next in line after Barton to point and say 'I told you so!' if the escape plans came to fruition.

When. When they came to fruition.

"…yes, yes, you're all welcome." Loki appeared disgruntled, giving the inventor a brief smile that was painfully sincere. "I hope you enjoy them. If you can enjoy a painting."

There were smiles and kind words all around, and the Loki started to drown out the noise, letting it fade into static and burying himself in his new gifts while his mind stated to process the modified statistics. _Thor is certainly for me, Steve and Bruce are right behind him, and I may have just pulled Tony out of the neutral zone and onto my side. Natasha and Barton are somewhere on the negative end of neutral, and while I'm not certain I can draw them in before I escape, I'm also not sure how much it will matter._

He grimaced, curling in on himself a little bit more and mumbling the words he was reading under his breath.

_I can't think about this now. It's all this Christmas nonsense turning me soft. By the time I unlock my magic, this fuzziness will all be gone, and I'll be back in my right mind._

"Loki, Cap, put your books away." Tony stood up, walking over the back of the couch and heading towards the media center. "No point trying to read while it's so noisy. Besides, we're gonna watch a movie!"

Loki rolled his eyes, glowering at the man across the room. "Must we really?"

But Tony just laughed. "Don't be so glum, Loki. I think you'll really like this one. It's called," he paused for dramatic effect, whipping the plastic case out from behind his back, "Nightmare Before Christmas."

Loki blinked.

_What on Midgard have I gotten myself into?_

* * *

Clint pulled his arm back and stared, unblinking, at the red dots on the far wall. His breathing inaudible, his body still as a statue, he lined up the three arrowheads with their three respective targets.

_Something's wrong. _

He let them fly, wasting no time in reloading his bow and quickly lining up the next three so they would collide with those already in the air. They whizzed through the air a half a second later, and he watched to see what they would do.

_"Barton, do you hate me?"_

That was the one that got him started. His brain had stuttered, unsure of what to do with the question, and while he felt he had handled the impromptu inquiry well, it bothered him that there was no visible trigger.

Loki had been digging through his past at the time—he still was—and Clint understood that there would be certain triggers and situations that would bring up unusual topics from time to time. With that in mind, the archer had begun to analyze every detail of the time leading up to that particular question.

_Nothing._

It truly was out of the blue, and anything that should have been on Loki's mind that day wasn't related to his feelings for Barton at all. It had nothing to with his therapy, and it had nothing to do with Asgard and the subtopics therein. Given that Clint couldn't find a link, he decided to broaden his search, adding everything from civil rights movements and family values to famous wars and mythology.

_Nothing._

He reached back and found his quiver was empty, the twenty-four arrows scattered about the room on various targets. Letting out a sigh, he began to walk around and collect them, his thoughts still lingering on the god downstairs.

_It's there. I can't see it yet, but it's there._

Loki had brought up deep, thought-provoking questions over the past couple of weeks with just about everyone on the team, but far too many of them were unrelated to his past. Tony had managed to aggravate Loki by talking about how much Steve cared for him. Clint, of course, got the question about hatred. Footage showed the god had asked Natasha whether or not she thought he could be a better person.

These things shouldn't have _mattered _to Loki, but for some odd reason, they did.

For some odder reason, Loki was insistent upon pretending they didn't.

_ "Don't talk about your attack. I'll explain later."_

That night, when they went shopping for peaches, there hadn't actually been any danger. Clint had said that to get a reaction he could study, and what he found was that Loki forgot about the incident rather quickly. Once they left the store, Loki's mind switched onto a single track, and that was Brianna. It wasn't until later that Loki finally asked Steve to send Clint down, at which point he asked what the problem had been, and the agent fed him a quick, simple lie.

Loki's main concern should have been himself, but for some odd reason, it wasn't.

For some odder reason, Loki didn't seem to notice.

Christmas had been the tipping point, though. It had been the moment when Clint actually started to worry about the trickster and what he was planning. Why help Steve cook dinner? Why tell stories with Thor? Why entertain Tony's movie choice? Why give the team presents? Why go along with all the nonsense when he kept showing such intense irritation with the holiday?

_"I despise debts. I've given you all a gift now, so we are all even."_

It sounded right. It sounded like something Loki would say, it sounded prideful and detached and unfeeling. But it wasn't. Those gifts shouldn't have meant anything to Loki, and thus, he shouldn't have been indebted to anyone. Instead, he had been touched, and he felt the need to repay a debt.

_"You are one of the few people I know who won't see this act as some sort of… benevolent and soft-hearted gesture."_

But it was a benevolent, soft-hearted gesture. If Loki had been using his gift for Brianna to scheme in some way, shape, or form, he would have asked Steve or Bruce, someone who would show more compassion and maybe even become convinced that the god had turned over a new leaf. But he asked Clint, and once again his concept of repaying a debt only revealed how much his heart was in the action.

_"Merry Christmas, mortals."_

Loki had been split right down the middle. Half of him wanted to stay the same, half of him wanted to change into something new. He had tried putting up walls, and it failed miserably, forcing him to continue down the path Bruce had set for him. Still, he would resist when he got the notion, throwing in little curveballs and speed bumps to make things complicated whenever he got the chance.

_But then something tipped the scale. Why is he fighting himself so intensely? Nothing about his daily routine has changed, other than the sickness he's been battling, he's been healthy and in a pretty good mood. So what happened?_

Then, like a light had been turned on in the dark, he understood.

_He found a way out._

Somehow—and Clint didn't know just how yet, but he would—Loki had figured out a way he could successfully escape the tower. Unfortunately, Bruce made a lot of progress in the meantime. He had cut the god open, like a surgeon exposing a tumor, and Loki was afraid to leave in the middle of surgery. He was surrounded by people—lifelines—that he wasn't sure he could live without, even though he had never appeared to need them before. He was being faced with a choice between getting cut more deeply and having the cyst removed or covering it up and letting it fester and grow.

Neither would be pleasant, but only one of them would ultimately lead to demise.

_What now?_

Clint watched as the wooden target splintered beneath the force of the third and final blow, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to figure out what to do with the information he had.

_Loki might not leave. I don't trust him enough to believe that, but there's still a possibility that the others can reset the scale before he's actually ready to escape, and I need to take that into consideration._

He picked up one of the arrows and examined it, pressing the tip to his forehead and exhaling slowly.

_We don't know what this escape could possibly be, and honestly it's hard to believe there is one at all, given all the precautions we took. It's not like we can monitor him more than we already do, and interrogating him won't get us anywhere. He can't know that we know._

Clint flipped the arrow and stuck it over his shoulder, following it up with seven of its brothers and sisters from around the room. Turning on his heel, he marched towards the door, having a single destination in mind.

_Maybe nobody else should know. Thor and Steve are both terrible liars, and Tony and Bruce would be able to pull it off, but not long-term. One of them would let something slip, and Loki is too clever to miss something like that. _

He closed the door behind him and started down the hall, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and shooting out a quick text to the one person he felt he could share his discovery with—the one person who would be able to keep it under wraps and cover his blindside whenever necessary.

_1 New Message_

_Tasha: I'll put the coffee on._


	21. Chapter 21

Loki startled awake, grasping at the hand over his mouth and thrashing beneath the blankets as panic dragged him from the realm of slumber into painfully acute awareness. _What's going on?_

"Shh!" Clint shook him, pressing down harder and glaring the god into submission. "Don't make a sound," he whispered, slowly uncovering the trickster's mouth and dragging him out of bed. "Get dressed. Something durable. Quick."

Loki took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down, ignoring the pounding muscles inside of his chest and focusing on being as quiet as was humanly possible. Walking up to his dresser, he thought about the contents for a moment and then picked one drawer to open.

"Shoes," he whispered, pulling out a pair of dark blue jeans and grabbing a forest green turtleneck from the dirty laundry.

Clint inched towards the door and glanced both directions before disappearing around the corner. Loki took no more than thirty seconds to change and then grabbed two jackets, following the archer out into the hall.

_Where are the alarms? Where are the other Avengers?_

Turning around to watch their flank, Loki tailed the other closely, slowly pulling the fabric jacket onto his body followed by the leather one. Fingers twitched anxiously at his sides, longing for a weapon of some sort to grab onto, eyes darting back and forth between Clint and the corridor stretching out behind them. For a moment, he considered taking a couple of the archer's arrows but decided it was unwise. He couldn't explain his reasoning given their situational silence, and he didn't want to do anything that might provoke or startle the man.

_He has plenty of reasons to stick an arrow in my head without me grabbing him from behind._

Clint came to a stop and reached a hand back to halt the other, pressing the down button on the elevator panel and waiting. Loki watched in perplexed curiosity as Clint stepped inside the elevator, pressed every single button, and then stepped back out.

"Stairs."

Despite his rapidly increasing confusion, the trickster said nothing, trying to keep an eye out for any sort of threat as they made their way down the corridor and into the stairwell. Clint seemed to think the danger was less once they were inside, seeing as he put his bow away and took the steps three or four at a time, but Loki wasn't so quick to lighten up.

_What if Clint _is _the danger?_

He shook the thought off as quickly as it came, not wanting to entertain such an idea until there was more proof on the table. From the looks of things, they only had each other as allies for the time being. Loki didn't want to oust the one person he had on his side.

"Others?" Loki asked quietly, glancing around for any sign of a microphone or camera.

Clint shook his head, confirming the god's suspicions. They were alone in this.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs took longer than either of them would have liked, and Clint threw the door open with an urgency that hadn't existed at the top of the stairwell. Beckoning Loki into the room, which appeared to be a weapons vault of some sort, the archer continued over to the far wall and began to sort through a crate of arrows.

Loki shut the door behind them and approached quietly, looking over the contents of each box he passed and trying to find something he was actually somewhat familiar with. Granted, he didn't imagine it would be very hard to fire a gun, but daggers or swords or even a staff would be more his area of expertise.

Click.

"Hands where I can see them."

Loki froze for half of a second before the demand registered, and he slowly rose his hands up above his head, chest rattling with the force of his heartbeat. "Barton? What's—?"

"Not a word, Loki." Clint's voice was hard and cold, sending a chill up the other's spine. "Face the wall and get down on your knees. Move slowly."

Wetting his lips, Loki took a deep breath and made a quarter turn to the right, slowly lowering himself onto his knees and keeping his hands where the archer could clearly see them. "Barton, you're making a mistake. Just—"

"Loki, not a _word._ Just do as you're told."

Loki tensed, feeling the barrel of a gun come into contact with the back of his head. He had seen what the fire-spitting weapons could do to a mortal's skull, and while it had done little more than amuse him at the time, he was the mortal one now. So very, very mortal.

"Put your hands on the wall and keep your head down."

Denying the shudder that threatened to tear through his frame, he flattened his palms against the cool metal surface and bowed his head, licking his lips again as his nerves ran amuck.

_Why is he doing this? He can't go against orders, and I haven't done anything to deserve execution—at least, not lately, I haven't. _He tried to turn his head, but Clint's hand came down and pushed it back into place, fingers curling through his hair and gripping relentlessly. _He can't know. It's impossible. I unlocked the second seal last night, and my magic is stronger, but S.H.I.E.L.D. has no way of tracking or identifying magic, and I've been so careful. He can't know. There is no way any of them can know._

Loki hissed, mild but unexpected pain sparking across the back of his neck, fingers digging into the skin and prodding every vertebrae. "Barton—" he may have told the god to be quiet, but he didn't threaten to shoot him for speaking yet, "—can you at least explain to me what's happening?"

Clint pulled his head back and leaned down, whispering harshly beside his ear. "I told you to be _quiet. _You don't need to know any more." Both hands were removed, but the sound of a quick release blade took away any sense of comfort the action may have caused.

Loki held his breath, waiting to see what Clint would do. For a moment, there was nothing, but then he felt the blade sliding across the back of his neck, warm blood slipping down into his collar a moment later.

_What is he doing? I don't understand. I don't understand. _Loki swallowed, forcing himself to keep his hands on the wall and not resist whatever it was the man was doing to him. _He has one hand on my shoulder, and he's cutting with the other, which means he doesn't have the gun. _But he didn't move. He didn't know what to do or believe or trust, but he didn't move.

Clint's knife continued to move along, quickly cutting another line parallel to the first and then up the sides, forming a crude rectangle. Then the tip went back to the bottom, pressing into the wound while two fingers pushed down from the top.

"Ah!" Loki made the sound involuntarily, and he bit down on his lip in the hope that Clint would understand he wasn't purposefully trying to cause problems.

There was a quiet sigh, and then Clint spoke, his voice somewhat softer than it had been up to that point. "Hang in there."

Pain struck the back of his neck again, and he flinched, feeling only mild relief as something was pulled out from beneath the surface of his skin. Clint set the item down and then leaned forward, pressing what felt like gauze or some soft fabric against the wound.

"There. Piece of cake."

"I'm glad you think so." Loki glared over his shoulder, anger masking the confusion and fear still coursing beneath the surface. "What were you _doing _back there?"

Clint taped the bandage on and then got to his feet, motioning for Loki to do the same. "I had to remove the chip in your neck." Extending his hand, he dropped the little metal square into the god's hands and continued. "Remember when those agents were killing themselves because of the staff? You said they probably had a big secret they didn't want getting out?"

Loki gave a single nod, disturbed by the fact that he had been chipped at some point, and yet so incredibly relieved to find no one knew about his magic that it almost didn't matter.

"We investigated your theory, and after months of evasion, they finally dropped their cover. H.Y.D.R.A. has been growing inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. for who knows how long, and now they're trying to take over." Clint began to speak with more urgency, moving around the room and grabbing various weapons and supplies to take along. "Banner was taken this morning, Stark is missing, Romanoff and Rogers are on the run, and Thor isn't back from Asgard yet. It's you and me, pal, and I needed to know that there was some level of trust between us."

Shaking his head, Loki tried to process the sudden onslaught of information, rubbing his temple and repeating the archer's words back to him. "H.Y.D.R.A. is trying to eradicate S.H.I.E.L.D. Dr. Banner is in captivity, Anthony is missing, Natasha and Steve are on the run, and Thor hasn't returned. You and I are supposed to… do what, exactly? Why do you think I trust you at all?" He glanced down at his hand. "Most importantly, when and why was I implanted with this—this thing?"

Clint pointed towards the opposite end of the room. "Look for weapons and shoes while we talk, and don't put that chip down yet." He threw a second quiver over his shoulder and then patted himself down. "We chipped you because, on the off chance you managed to get through all three hundred and twenty-five levels of security, we needed to be able to track you. If you had known the chip was there, you would have tried to remove it upon escaping, so we did it while you were unconscious when Thor first brought you here. But H.Y.D.R.A. has access to those tracking devices, so I had to remove it." He tucked a few knives and a pistol into various holsters and pockets. "We are going to fight H.Y.D.R.A. because they are a mutual enemy, and I know that you trust me to at least some extent because you had more than one opportunity to overpower me. I made sure of that."

Loki said nothing for a moment, pulling an assortment of daggers from the box before him and frowning at the odd handles. _Still, they should work. _He grabbed them and tucked them in between his jackets, along with a handgun and a few small explosives.

"I understand most of what you're saying, but I still don't understand how we are going to fight H.Y.D.R.A. They are an organized group, and we are two men. Unless I am missing something, and I don't think I am, we are severely outnumbered." Loki found himself unable to stuff anything else in his clothing without it becoming apparent from the outside that he was concealing weaponry, so he grabbed one final knife to hold in his hand and sat down to lace up the boots he had found, waiting for the archer to further explain their mission.

"It doesn't matter. They'll destroy anyone and anything they get their hands on. We have to stop them—we have to at least try." Clint reached out and grabbed the chip, setting it on the floor near the wall and moving towards the door. "That'll have them thinking we're down here for at least a little while longer. We need to get back up to ground level and get on the streets. We're going to headquarters, and we're going to do anything and everything in our power to get that building back under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s control." Stopping at the door, Clint turned to face Loki fully and gave him a hard stare. "If you want to back out, do it now."

Loki thought about doing just that, but the idea was short-lived. Clint wouldn't have come for him unless he truly needed all the help he could get, and if H.Y.D.R.A. won, they would no doubt strap the trickster to a table and spend the rest of his limited lifespan cutting him to bits in the name of science. Banner, too, and as much as Loki had been rebelling against such softness, the doctor was something like a friend to him. He didn't want Bruce to be reduced to a drooling, brain-dead mockery of an experiment.

Or Steve. Or Tony. Or anybody, really. He knew what H.Y.D.R.A. was capable of due to the research he had done when he first got his hands on the Tesseract, and it was a tad crueler than anything the god had ever planned for the human race.

Given his actual plans for the human race, that was saying something.

"You can't get rid of me that easily. Sorry, Barton."

If he got lucky, and somehow he doubted he would, he might actually live long enough to regret those words.

* * *

"Put your hands where I can see them." Clint pulled back on the bowstring, narrowing his gaze at the young agent in question and driving her away from her desk with the tip of his arrow.

Moving slowly, the young woman stepped away from her computer and did as she was told, raising her hands above her head and staring at him with an expression of confusion mixed with horror. "Agent Barton? I… I don't—"

"No one did. That's what made it perfect." Smirking, he let the arrow fly across the room and took a look at the computer screen to see what she had been up to. "What do we have here?"

She looked between him and the arrow pressed snugly up against her throat, struggling with her words for a moment before wetting her lips and setting her jaw. "If you can figure it out, be my guest."

"Oh, I can." He loaded his bow and drew the string back once more. "But I think it would be easier for the both of us if you just told me."

"Go jump off a bridge." There was no hesitation, her body pressing back against the wall out of heavily suppressed survival instincts and fear, none of which she allowed to show on her face.

"Now, now." Clint shook his head, clucking his tongue disdainfully. "You really should be more cooperative. If you swear allegiance to H.Y.D.R.A., you might actually walk away from this. You could walk away from this with _benefits, _even. If not…" He let his voice trail, allowing a cold smirk to finish the sentence for him.

Her eyes turned to ice, every aspect of her body language defiant and unwavering. "I'll take the arrow."

"You sure? It can take more than one of these to kill you if I do it right."

"I hope it does." She swallowed, shaking her head with a bitter laugh. "Fewer arrows to hit the others with."

"Have it your way." Clint pulled back just a bit more and stared her down, taking in every little detail about her countenance in deadly silence. Her determination, despite its accompanying fear, was a refreshing sight. She was prepared to die—even suffer—for her cause, and to top it all off, she had chosen he right side to fight for. She was afraid, but she would be crazy not to considering the man he was pretending to be, and he didn't fault her for it.

"Loki," he lowered his bow, "we found one."

"Oh, good. For a moment, I thought we would have to kill everyone in this building." Sauntering into the room, the god flashed one of his classic, mischievous smirks and bowed to the young agent. "Congratulations. You're the first person we've found who hasn't sworn loyalty to H.Y.D.R.A. You get to live."

"Don't get discouraged." Clint quickly cut in, not wanting Loki to completely demolish the morale her loyalty had created. "We're only on the first floor. We're working our way up, not down."

She only blinked, hands still over her head, and looked between the two men. It took a few more seconds for the situation to sink in, and then she allowed herself to breathe again, groaning as the anxiety and adrenaline was flushed from her body. "I… hate you. I… ugh." She inhaled deeply and ran her hands through her hair. "It's just the three of us, then? You don't have any of the other… the other Avengers?"

Loki shook his head, using his silver tongue to make quick work of the explanation. "They're either running, missing, or already captured. We've started our own little mission here, trying to reclaim the building and hack into the systems so we can see what H.Y.D.R.A. is up to. What is your name and would you like to help?"

"Agent Elaina Byer. Yes." Moving away from the wall, she returned to the computer she had abandoned and pointed to the screen. "I'm trying to hack into a database and a frequency—the database to see what H.Y.D.R.A. is planning, and the frequency to send out an S.O.S. to any S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were either on a field mission or taking time off when H.Y.D.R.A. revealed themselves."

Clint looked over her shoulder. "Smart thinking. Would H.Y.D.R.A. be getting that S.O.S. as well?"

Elaina nodded. "Yes. I figured it was better to alert everyone, given that H.Y.D.R.A already knows what they're doing, than to leave agents in the dark until it's too late."

"I agree." Clint paused and then shook his head. "But we don't have the power we need here. These are basic computers for paperwork and filing. We need to get to the top floor, hopefully into Director Fury's office, and use one of the systems there."

Loki snapped his fingers in front of the screen to get their attention, glancing over his shoulder but still fully facing the door. "I hear footsteps. We need to go. Now."

That was all Clint needed to hear. He pulled two grenades from his belt without a second thought, ushering his two companions towards the door and following close behind. "Go right and don't stop running!" He threw one bomb to the far end of the room and tossed the other just a few feet away, bolting out the door and chasing after them, a volley of arrows flying down the hall in the direction they had come from, the shafts spitting nets in every direction to block the path.

There was no going back, anyway.

"Loki, take the lead. Byer, use this to do whatever hacking you can on the way." Clint tossed her his StarkPhone followed by a handgun, still running behind them. "If you know someone is H.Y.D.R.A, shoot to kill. Only hesitate if you think they might be S.H.I.E.L.D."

Elaina removed the safety and held the gun close to her side, using her free hand to navigate the glorified smartphone as they went. "What's my priority?"

Clint huffed, unsure of how to answer that question. Both were important, but which one was more important, and which one would require more urgency to be of any use?

"Send the distress call!" Loki grabbed a guard by the throat and stabbed him twice in the abdomen before dropping him to the ground. "Even if we don't have specific orders to give those agents right away, they will know what they're walking into when they return to a base somewhere, if they return. They can still be doing damage to H.Y.D.R.A. even if it's unorganized damage—chaos has more power than you know, I assure you."

Elaina looked to Clint for confirmation, a bewildered expression on her face. She probably didn't expect Loki, of all people, to be helping her and Clint Barton take on H.Y.D.R.A.

But Clint nodded. "Do what he said." He fired a trio, a double, and another trio, watching as the soldiers fell one by one, bodies stacking up in the hallway. "Loki, your priority is protecting Agent Byer. She needs to be able to focus on hacking with as few distractions as possible—the most important thing is that we get into those computers yesterday!"

"Understood," was the god's only response.

_Could today get any more ridiculous?_

Clint fired another arrow, knowing that it could and almost certainly would.

* * *

Loki hissed softly, using the pain in his shoulder to fuel his adrenaline and slashing the agent's throat. Pulling the blade out, he held onto the corpse just long enough to ensure she was dead and then dropped the body to the floor, rolling his shoulders and rubbing the tender joint with a grunt.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side." Elaina barely glanced up from the phone Clint had given her, fingers dancing across the screen with a certain precision and accuracy that could only come from experience.

"We do not have guns on Asgard. Battle is bloody by default, and if you want to survive, you cannot hesitate." Shrugging, the god moved down the hall a little further and motioned for her to follow. "It would be foolish for me to try and use a gun in a situation such as this. I am best with knives, and given that we can't afford many mistakes, knives are what I intend to use, as long as they are capable of accomplishing the task at hand."

Elaina gave a soft, almost cynical chuckle. "Trust me, I wasn't suggesting you use a gun. You're doing great. I just… I don't know."

Loki glanced over his shoulder, feeling an odd mix of sympathy and vexation. "It's doubt. How can we be the good guys when we're justifying such a brutal slaughter? It's an excellent question, one that has crossed just about every mind in the history of the universe. I don't believe there is an answer."

Elaina didn't say anything, but she didn't ignore him, either. She was giving his words a copious amount of thought in between commands and keystrokes, and the silence gave him time to sort out his own thoughts and prepare for whatever was next, so he didn't press her for a reply.

_We're on the seventeenth floor, and Barton said he would meet us in the stairwell outside the door to the eighteenth. We have to be getting close to the top, but the amount of people in this building who were loyal to H.Y.D.R.A. is overwhelming. Barton is trying to utilize what resources we have right now, but there couldn't have been more than two hundred men when we last saw him. I have to wonder, even if we do manage to get things under control here, will it really matter in the end?_

Loki grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, heading into the stairwell with cautious steps. There was no one on the same level as them, and a quick look up and down told him they were alone.

"Agent Barton said to wait if we got here before him."

"I know." Loki scowled, making his way up the flight carefully. "But we can only wait so long. We have no way of knowing whether he's late or dead."

Elaina nodded, burying her face in her phone again. "I'm trying to get a secure line up, but H.Y.D.R.A. is actively blocking the attempts."

Loki scowled. "It's because they have the extra manpower to do it. We might be winning here, but I doubt the same can be said of every facility they've attempted to overthrow." Chewing on his lip, he peered through the window in the stairwell door. "It looks empty. They're bound to be coming behinds us." Sighing, he turned so his back was against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. "It's almost been a minute already, and a minute is a precious thing in battle. I'll give him four more, and if he's still not here, we're moving on. We can't afford to wait."

Elaina gave a quick nod and continued to tap away at the screen, an expression of frustration quickly overtaking her features as the seconds ticked by. Blue eyes darted back and forth, following numbers and codes he couldn't begin to understand, but it seemed whatever she was doing wasn't having the desired effect.

"Three minutes." Loki sighed. "Is there something else you can try if the secure line isn't working right now?"

She shook her head. "The secure line _was _my something else. Originally, I was trying to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D., then I was trying to send the S.O.S. Now this." She set the phone down for a moment and pulled her hair back, tying it up before returning to the device. "It's not that I can't get in, they're just waiting for me when I do. Honestly, even if we do manage to get to Director Fury's computer, I don't know what good it will do as long as they're policing the servers."

Loki nodded his head. "Two minutes." He paused, thinking over the hacking situation and trying to decide the best way to go about removing that extra manpower. "We need to know where they're hiding Dr. Banner. I would imagine, despite the fact that he's heavily sedated, they would have a lot of men on site. That's where we need to attack next, and hopefully if we cut off those heads, they'll be spread too thin to be focused on keeping you out."

Elaina nodded. "I'll see if I can find transmissions. It'll be easier than trying to break into an entire database, for sure."

Loki gave a slow nod, still thinking over the situation. "Once we have Dr. Banner, we'll be up to four people. I don't know if it would be wise for him to engage in battle, but we would at least have that option. That would certainly do damage, spread them thinner. Thor should be back fairly soon, and electrical storms as well as water are not the friends of technology. Perhaps he could throw out some interference…"

Elaina looked up at him, a crease in her brow and a look in her eyes he didn't understand.

"What?" he snapped. "What is it?"

She immediately looked down at her phone. "Nothing."

Loki scowled, not believing her but knowing he didn't have the time to argue. "Hmm." He shook his head and grabbed onto the door handle. "Time's up, Agent Byer. Let's go."

* * *

"I told you to wait for me."

"Really? You're still going on about that?"

Clint fired a smoke bomb arrow into the hallway behind them, grey fumes billowing into the passage as they continued to run. "Yes, I am."

"Don't be childish. Agent Byer and I were able to get Dr. Banner's location and secure Director Fury's office without you, and you were able to eliminate far more H.Y.D.R.A. agents because things were under control." Loki looked down at the StarkPhone in his hands and made a sharp left, following the directions that would hopefully lead them to Bruce's holding cell.

"I know." Clint fell in step behind him, firing two sets of three arrows in quick succession to deal with the group of agents up ahead. "But I told you to wait."

"Are you pouting?"

"No."

Loki shook his head with a sigh, and Clint cracked a small smile. If it weren't for the fact that the trickster was a genocidal war criminal that couldn't be trusted for even a fraction of a second outside of situations that directly benefitted him, he would make a good ally.

"You're rather quick to fire. Aren't you concerned you might be killing S.H.I.E.L.D. agents?" Loki asked, pointing out a path up ahead and to the right. "That way."

Clint shook his head, following closely behind and sending seven more down the option to the left. "No. If they're firing at me, they're H.Y.D.R.A."

"How can you be so certain?" the god questioned.

Clint met his eyes for just a moment before turning to look behind them. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is more than my occupation. S.H.I.E.L.D. is my home—my family. No one here would think I was part of H.Y.D.R.A." He paused to sheath his arrow and throw a grenade out behind them, not liking the volume of the approaching footsteps. "Even Byer didn't believe it at first, and I was pointing an arrow at her head."

Loki pursed his lips, wincing at the explosion behind them and the subsequent pain in his ears. "I see. This must be… difficult for you."

Clint's expression darkened. "I've done worse things to them."

Loki must have sensed the danger of that topic because he immediately turned his attention back to the device in his hands without uttering a single word in his defense.

_Good._

They came skidding to a halt outside the door that allegedly contained their companion.

"Why would they put him on a hellicarrier?" Loki wondered aloud, stepping back and allowing Clint to work on the keypad by the door.

"I have two theories. One, they don't have anywhere else to contain him until the fighting is over. Two, they intend to drop him in the middle of a populated area and let survival instincts bring out the Hulk. Or it could be both." Clint took a step back and readied his bow, muttering under his breath. "I hope he's still Bruce when we get in there."

The door hissed as the seal was broken, pushing inwards and sliding away into the wall, thick metal creaking and whining at the movement.

"Dr. Banner?"

Clint ran into the room and up to the computers, examining the screens and trying to figure out what exactly was keeping the man unconscious while Loki continued towards the center of the room, where their friend was splayed out on a hospital bed.

"Can't we just remove the mask and intravenous drip feeds?" Loki reached out, fingers tugging lightly at the restraints. "Once the drugs wear off, he should wake up, yes?"

"Yes, but I don't know what traps H.Y.D.R.A. may have set." Clint's fingers flew across the keyboard, a frown creasing his brow. "Loki, what do you know about the human body?"

Loki snorted. "I believe we've established that it is next to nothing."

"Right. Stupid question." Clint ran both hands through his hair. "I have no idea what this means. I'm just going to shut the whole thing off and see what warnings pop up."

Loki walked over and peered down at the screen, arching an eyebrow. "So, you're going to do what I said to do two minutes ago."

"Shut up."

Trying to get a better look at the screen, the god leaned over the other's shoulder, effectively sending a chill up Clint's spine.

"What you said earlier… about S.H.I.E.L.D. I really am—"

"Don't." Clint kept his gaze forward, choosing his words carefully, unable to breathe with the god so close to his exposed back. "Not now. I'm too angry, and I wouldn't believe you. If you think about it for a while and still want to do it—preferably when we're not in a life-or-death situation—then by all means, go right ahead. But not now." He didn't spare a single glance in Loki's direction, and with a final keystroke, he turned around in the opposite direction to look at Bruce. "He should wake up any second."

"Should," Loki echoed.

Clint poked his head out into the hall. "And H.Y.D.R.A. should realize we're here in about two to three minutes."

Red lights flooded the room and adjacent hallways, alarms screaming up and down the corridors with the sound of thundering footsteps right behind them, the entire base submerged in a sense of emergency as their presence was broadcasted throughout the ranks.

"Should." Loki gave Clint a devilish sort of grin and drew his knives, approaching the door cautiously. "I see two good ways to do this. One, we each take one half of the hall. Two, which I believe will be more successful, you shoot the ones in the back, and I kill the ones that get past you."

Three arrows found themselves lined up against the Hawk's bow. "I like option two."

The first of many agents rounded the corner, and Clint released the string, readying three more before the previous set had found its mark. _Anytime you want to wake up, Banner. Any time at all. _He didn't expect Bruce to listen to him, however, so he kept firing at the black and gray swarm in the distance.

"Agent Barton," his earpiece crackled. "I'm in the database, but there's nothing in here about Stark's location. I found a transmission that says he was 'obtained,' but I don't know where they took him. I'm trying to contact Jarvis, and I'll give you an update when I do. This line is secure, and I extended the frequency to Agent Romanoff."

Clint made brief noises of comprehension in between her sentences and his attacks. Loki was an excellent cover, somehow able to distinguish between Clint waiting for a closer target and Clint actually needing help.

"Captain America is on Hellicarrier No. 3," she continued, "and we have no Bifrost activity in the United States within the last twenty-four hours. I'll do a global search as soon as I can."

"We have Banner, but he's still unconscious. We're still on Hellicarrier No. 2. What is our next course of action?"

"Clint," Natasha's voice broke into the conversation. "Steve is taking down the hellicarriers, and I can't reach him to tell him where you are. You need to get off the hellicarrier and find Tony."

"We don't have any idea where he is. Agent Byer couldn't find a location. He could be anywhere." Clint started walking backwards and let Loki cover the door while he returned to Bruce's bedside. "Banner is still unconscious. Tell me how I'm supposed to carry him out with dozens of H.Y.D.R.A. agents trying to attack when it's just me and Loki."

"Be amazing."

"That doesn't help me."

"Good luck, Clint."

"I hate you."

The line went dead, and Clint let out a frustrated growl, collapsing his bow and quickly—albeit sloppily—maneuvering Bruce over his shoulder. The doctor wasn't all that heavy, despite the immense weight of his other half, but there was still no way he would be firing arrows in such a state.

"Loki, I need you to cover me. We're going to the hanger." Clint stepped into the hall and placed himself behind the god of mischief. "It's all you. Good luck."

"Gee, thanks," Loki drawled, dropping another body to the floor. Sliding his knife into his holster, he grabbed two pistols from the bodies on the floor and began firing down the hall, evidently understanding their need for long-distance damage.

"Huh. Seems I'm not so terrible with a gun, after all."

Clint watched the soldiers fall like dominoes, a haughty grin curling his lips. "Your aim could be better." It really shouldn't have been funny.

Loki sighed, firing the last two bullets and returning to his default weapon as the hall started to clear. "Everyone's a critic." Shaking his head, he turned the conversation back to business. "So, we're going to the hanger. I assume we're going to steal a jet, but then what?"

Clint whistled. "That's a great question. When I have an answer, I'll let you know."

"Fat lot of good you are."

It really shouldn't have been funny. It really _shouldn't _have been funny.

But it was. Fighting side by side with Loki was almost as entertaining as fighting alongside Stark or Natasha. The bantering, the remarks, the sarcastic wit—it was all so casual, flowing naturally as if things were supposed to be that way.

_But he's going to betray us._

For the moment, however, they were on the same side, trying to achieve the same goal. So he tucked away any thoughts about Loki's long-term loyalty and started forming a skeleton of a plan in his mind.

_Where would I take Tony Stark? Where would I be able to contain him and keep him away from electronics? Where would I try to hide one of the most famous men in the world?_

"Barton, is this what we're looking for?"

Clint stopped by the door and looked in the window, muttering a quick word of confirmation and stepping back to allow Loki to open it up. He put one foot through the door, and in the split second it took him to lift the other one, he had assessed the layout of the room and determined that H.Y.D.R.A. had not expected this move. His next step took him into open space, and the third put him a good yard or so from the door.

Loki fell in step behind him, occasionally sending a projectile through the air towards an unfortunate agent who happened to turn their head at the wrong time, but for the most part, their transit remained unseen.

Clint picked a small jet—one that was good for maneuvering through violent airspace—and darted up the ramp, pulling one of the collapsible beds from the wall and laying their rescued comrade down. "Keep this plane empty until I can get that ramp shut."

Loki nodded his head without a word, drawing two of his knives and focusing all of his attention on the broad opening at the back of the aircraft. It wouldn't take long for someone to find the fallen guards, and once they did, it would be Hallway Ambush: The Sequel.

"If we could get this thing in the air immediately, that would be superb." Loki glanced over his shoulder. "Or at least let me borrow your gun so I don't wind up throwing all of my knives away."

Clint sighed, twisting in the pilot's chair and tossing the handgun at the god's head. "Here. But ammo is limited, too, don't forget that."

Loki grabbed the weapon and trained it on the doorway. "I am aware of that as well as the fact that I am firing from a longer distance and increasing my chances of missing. It's worth it, in the long run."

"Don't forget to take off the safety, genius."

"Barton! Get this jet in the air!"

Clint didn't need to be told a third time. He left Loki by the ramp and returned to the front ensuring everything was ready to go before starting the engines. _I've got about three minutes before they figure out we're rogue and mob the plane. _He flipped the switch to raise the ramp and started rolling down the strip.

"L—"

Three shots were fired in quick succession, a small intermission filling the craft with silence before two more rang out.

"Loki, hold on to Banner!"

The trickster dove for the unconscious man, grabbing on to him as well as the bed he was laying on.

Wheels hit the end of the runway, and then they were suspended in midair, nothing to keep them up but wings and jet fuel. Bullets rained down on the metal frame, but no significant damage was done, and they were out of range in less than a minute.

"You can let him go now," the archer called. "I think they have bigger things to worry about." His lips twitched into a light smile at the sight of the compromised hellicarrier sinking towards the ground. _Go get'em, Cap._

"Right. Good." Loki's voice filtered up from the back. "We stole a jet." He ran his hands through his hair, relief showing on his face as a long, steady stream of air passed through his lips. "We stole a jet from H.Y.D.R.A., and we're still alive."

Clint said nothing, but he was certain his face showed enough to satisfy. Unfortunately, given the fact that they were still in H.Y.D.R.A. airspace, the tension was just as tangible as the relief. It was an odd mix, but it was certainly better than the overwhelming chaos they had experienced for the majority of the day.

"Dr. Banner is waking up." Loki shifted closer to the bed, a frown darkening his features. "I only hope he's in control of himself. If he unleashes the Hulk, we're going down for certain."

Clint nodded sharply, looking into his mirrors. 'Try to keep him calm, and bring him up to speed _gently."_

"Why do I have to do it?"

"Because I'm flying a jet." Grinning, he cast a glance over his shoulder at the god. "And you're the silvertongue."

Loki snorted and rolled his eyes, kneeling beside the fold-out bed and placing a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Dr. Banner, can you hear me?"

Bruce's eyes opened, but there was no recognition or clarity. He may have been conscious, but the drugs hadn't worn off completely.

"Dr. Banner, this is Loki. You're safe. Hawkeye is here, and we're taking you to safety. Do you understand?"

"Hmm…" Bruce opened his mouth, but nothing came out. "Ahh…"

"It's alright. Don't push yourself. Just relax and let us handle everything."

Clint doubted the trickster had any intention of actually handling everything by himself, but he didn't want the man stressing himself out, and Clint couldn't say he blamed him.

"It's cold…"

Loki looked around for a blanket, but the jet wasn't exactly designed for comfort. "I'm sorry, doctor, I don't have anything to help with that."

"Here." Clint switched on the autopilot for half of a second and shed his uniform jacket. "Tell him to ignore the blood stains."

Loki gave the man a curious look but retrieved the coat from the front and draped it over the doctor's body carefully. "Better?"

Clint shut the remainder of the conversation out, speaking into his earpiece in the hopes of receiving good news in return. "This is Hawkeye. Loki and I have Banner, who is regaining consciousness, we stole a jet, and we are currently going southeast. Any update on Stark's location?"

For a moment, there was nothing but static, and Clint's heart dropped down into his stomach, but then Elaina's voice cut through.

"This is Agent Byer. I hacked the Iron Man suit, and I can confirm that it is functioning, however… Jarvis is not responding, and there are no life signs in the suit."

Clint sighed heavily, shaking his head and screwing his eyes shut. "Any sign of H.Y.D.R.A. either running the suit or containing it?"

"Without Jarvis, I have no way of knowing any of that. I'm going to try and hack into the GPS and visuals, but I can't guarantee anything."

Growling, the archer took one hand off the controls and tried to navigate the onboard computer systems. "Where is the signal coming from?"

"Twelve different locations around the globe."

"Probably H.Y.D.R.A. then."

"Or Stark trying to keep H.Y.D.R.A. off of his scent," she countered.

Clint sighed. "Can't we just keep things black and white in a way that gives me a clear target to shoot at?"

"No." Elaina exhaled into the mic. "I'll narrow it down somehow. For now, you need to go to the Castle. It's been completely taken over by H.Y.D.R.A. It's unlikely they left any members of S.H.I.E.L.D. alive, and we need to cut our losses there."

Clint frowned, glancing in the rearview at the two battered men under his command. "And what would you like me to do about that?"

"Something. Anything. I don't know, but we're losing this fight, and without Director Fury, I'm making up my own orders as I go along."

"What do you mean without him?" he snapped, abandoning his attempt to operate the computer and placing both hands on the sticks again. "What happened?"

"Agent Barton…" her voice crackled through the speaker, sympathetic tones only mildly distorted by static. "Director Fury is dead. I'm sorry, I thought Romanoff would have told you. She was there when he flat lined."

Clint didn't say anything for a while, pushing through the shock only to find himself torn between anger and logic. _He can't be dead. Natasha wouldn't keep that from me. She has to know something we don't. He can't be dead. He can't be._

"Agent Barton?"

"Right, got it. We'll do something about the Castle. Let me know if you find out anything about Stark. I'm guessing the global Bifrost activity scan hasn't revealed anything yet?"

"No, sir."

"Keep me posted."

"Will do."

Clint dropped the connection and let out a deep sigh, brow creased with frustration and—as much as it burned him to admit—doubt. _She would have told me. Byer and I don't know all the details, and Natasha couldn't afford to communicate the truth through the wire. She would have told me. Fury isn't dead. He can't be. She—_

"Barton, is everything alright?" Loki's voice filtered up from the back.

"Yeah." He responded too quickly, he could feel it. "We're going to Canada. There's an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. base there that needs destroying." Trying to focus on the task at hand, he turned to look over his shoulder. "Bruce?"

"Yup, I can do it." He slowly sat up, leaning against the side of the jet and holding a hand to his head. "If you wanna drop me over the area…"

"Are you sure?" Clint flipped on the autopilot and turned around in his chair. "If you're not comfortable unleashing the Hulk—"

"Of course I'm not comfortable, but my comfort isn't exactly the most important thing in the world right now. If we need to take down the base, we need to take down the base." Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "It's the Battle of New York all over again. We're going to do what needs to be done. Period."

The three men stood in silence for a few minutes, and then Clint turned back towards the controls. "It'll take at least an hour and a half to get there. Try and rest until then."

Bruce gave a weary, half-coherent nod and slowly laid himself down again, receiving a small smile from Loki before the god joined Clint in the cockpit.

"Still no sign of Thor?" he whispered, pretending to be fascinated by the blinking lights and buttons despite the obvious tension stretched across his features.

"Nope."

Loki scowled. "That's not right. Heimdall would most certainly have seen this mayhem by now and reported it to Thor." He glanced over his shoulder, lowering his voice even further. "Barton… are you sure it's wise to unleash the Hulk?"

Clint gave him a brief smirk. "He was able to control himself the last time."

"Oh. Well then." Loki sniffed, crinkling his nose with an expression of disapproval, the former tightness replaced with a childish, bratty attitude. "Good to know."

The archer snickered to himself, shaking his head.

"It's not funny," the god mumbled.

"It's a little funny." Clint didn't try to hide his smile. "You totally deserved it."

Loki glared at him, but the expression didn't last, quickly dissolved by slouched shoulders and a sigh of resignation. "Yes, I suppose I did."

Clint's grin expanded, another chuckle rising in his throat. "You should have seen the look on your face when you turned around to see us all standing there." He really did try to stop smiling at that point, but every thought lead to one that was more amusing than its predecessors. "I'll have that drink now."

"Are you finished yet?"

Clint grinned, color slowly returning to his knuckles. "Ehehe. I guess so."

"You weren't there to see how I interrupted his 'I am a god' speech."

Both men turned to look at Bruce, who had joined the conversation with a sleepy grin. "What was it you said? Something about not being bullied?"

Loki glowered at him. "I thought you didn't remember what happens when you're overtaken by the Hulk."

"I don't." Smiling, the physician eased himself onto his feet. "But I wanted to see what I had done to you, so I looked at security footage from inside the Tower."

Clint huffed. "And you didn't share it with the rest of us because…?"

"You would have killed the humor by watching it one hundred times the first day," he said dryly. "But I do still have it."

"Oh, joy." Loki rolled his eyes. "Just be sure to let me know before you watch it so I can have plugs permanently glued into my ears beforehand."

Clint glanced at the screen, watching the time tick away as they got closer and closer to their destination. It was flecked with blood, red specks that had come from his own hands when he grappled at the controls.

"Did Cap ever tell you about his first internet experience?" Breaking the silence rather abruptly, the archer cast a toothy grin over his shoulder, trying to ease the weight on his chest.

"No, I don't think so."

"He did not, no."

So, Clint told another funny story, which led to another tale from Bruce, and eventually, with much pestering and blackmail, one from Loki as well. That was how they passed the time. Three men, stained with blood and flying a stolen armored jet to a location where they would spill more blood and steal more weapons all in the name of the greater good. Three men—_no, _Clint thought, _three monsters pretending to be men pretending to be heroes—_trying to smile a little while longer, the world below them fading away until it was just them and a jet.

And a lot of stupid stories.

* * *

_Ugh… Who set an alarm? It's Saturday. _

Probably Steve or Bruce—those crazy morning people—thought it would be a good idea to get everybody up and do some weird group project.

"Jarvis, turn off—" He stopped, the pain in his throat and the hoarseness of his own voice catching him off-guard. "Jarvis?"

There was no reply, and after a few moments spent in silence, he decided it was time to get up and find out what was going on.

_What?_

He couldn't move.

He tried his legs first, but they were strapped down. He tried his arms, but they were both restrained as well as tangled in a mess of what felt like tubes and wires.

Felt like.

He couldn't see—couldn't even sense light versus dark—and as the situation finally sank in, he panicked.

_I'm in captivity, I can't move, I don't know where I am, it's happening again, it's happening again, it _can't _happen again—_

The alarm, which he now realized was a heart monitor, got faster and more erratic. Visions of a dark cave and a car battery flashed across his unseeing eyes, a flurry of languages he didn't understand meshing together to form angry words and plots against innocent lives, lives they intended for him to take.

"Mr. Stark, it would be wise of you to calm down. We wouldn't want to have to sedate you again, now would we?"

He flinched at the unfamiliar voice, quickly slipping beyond the reach of reason as fear escalated.

_ I can't go back there, no again, never again, please let me out, let me out, let me—_

"Hood, what's going on in here?"

"I was just about to sedate him, sir."

"Good."

There was a prick in his arm, and he was taken over by a numb, lucid feeling moments later. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, whatever had been left of his voice was completely gone, his tongue turning to rubber in his mouth.

"Bring the arc reactor down to the lab. We're ready for it."

"Yes, sir."

"Hail, H.Y.D.R.A."

"Hail, H.Y.D.R.A.!"


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: This chapter fought me long and hard, and I had to rewrite it twice before I was finally somewhat happy with it. That being said, I'm sorry it took me so long to get this thing written up and posted. Please, enjoy this long overdue chapter!

* * *

Bruce wiped the sweat from his brow and leaned back on his haunches, staring up at the skies and letting out a deep sigh of what could only be described as a sickened remorse. Looking back down, he placed two fingers alongside the fallen agent's throat and felt a weak throb beneath the surface.

"You barely made it out alive." He smiled bitterly, shaking his head. "I think you're the only one that did, though, so congratulations."

Glassy blue eyes stared infinitely upward, bloody lips moving but remaining silent.

"You haven't crunched your cyanide yet." Bruce brushed the matted bangs back out of the man's eyes and wiped some of the blood from his mouth and nose. "Why not?"

"P… p…"

Bruce could guess what the man was going to say, and he ran his hands through the agent's hair again, trying to soothe him. "I won't hurt you. I'm sorry, this is my fault, I know. I won't hurt you now, though. I…" He trailed off, unsure of what it was he was trying to say.

_What _can_ I say?_

"The Other Guy… he doesn't recognize the value of life. I do, and I promise, I won't hurt you. I have no reason to hurt you. It's going to be okay, just try to—"

"Bruce!"

Momentarily distracted, the physician raised his head and began to look for the source of the distant call. It didn't take too long to spot two figures standing atop a large pile of rubble roughly one hundred and fifty yards away, and he quickly cupped his hands around his mouth to reply.

"I can see you!"

"S… s… sr…"

Bruce turned back to the man on the ground, unsure of what to do with him. Questioning him was pointless given the state he was in, and while the doctor believed the man was trying to get a point across, a few disjointed sounds gave him no starting point or context to work with.

Turning back around, he saw that the figures had started to move towards him, and he waved his arms to ensure that they had, in fact, seen him and were coming his way. Both returned the wave, and after a brief thumbs up he doubted they could actually see, he returned his attention to the fallen H.Y.D.R.A. agent again.

"Can you try to speak one word?"

Nothing.

"Can you point to something that would give me a clue?"

Bruce thought he saw the man's hand twitch, but other than that, there was nothing.

"I can't do much more to help you. There are no medics out here, and…" He shook his head, deciding not to delve into the severity of the situation. "If there is something you need to tell me, you need to try really hard to get it out right now."

Bruce crouched down, placing both hands on the shirt he had been using to staunch the blood flow from the wounded leg. _He might just be messing with me. Maybe he's making noise to distract me from something, from some sort of H.Y.D.R.A. murder-suicide tactic. But at this point, could he honestly be coherent enough to pull something like that?_

"Do… do you know where Tony Stark is?"

"S… sss…"

Bruce sighed, pulling on his hair and trying to decide whether or not there was any point to all of this. Maybe it wasn't even an attempt at speaking, maybe he was just trying to breathe and Bruce was looking too much into it.

"S… s… ry…"

Bruce froze, lowering his ear to the other's mouth. "What did you say?"

"S… ry… I… I…" Blood spurted over the man's lips, coughs and spasms racking his body as he struggled to bring in air. "I'm… s-s… so… sor… ry…"

Bruce felt his chest seize, both hands shaking against the blood-soaked fabric that was now doing so very little to keep the injured man alive. _Oh… Oh, God… I… _He shook his head and wet his lips, speaking as steadily and as softly as he could despite his swelling unrest.

"It's alright. I… I forgive you. I'm sure… whatever reasons you had…"

Jerking, the man drew a broken, mangled hand up to his chest, rubbing it back and forth slowly. He tried to tap it, but he couldn't elevate his limb more than a centimeter or so before it dropped again.

"Bruce, who is it?"

He heard the call, but it was too distant and too irrelevant to draw his eyes away from the dying man on the snow. Instead, he slid the hand aside and started to peel away layer after layer of sticky, crimson fabric.

"Dr. Banner!"

His hands were quaking now, the man's rapidly devolving state weighing on his mind as he came to a sandwich-sized plastic bag taped to the man's chest. Carefully, delicately, he peeled away the adhesive and removed a small photograph from inside the already damaged bag. Blood had stained the majority of the image, turning the backside red and dampening the quality of the picture, but Bruce could still clearly make out one woman and two young daughters.

_He wasn't H.Y.D.R.A._

"Dr. Banner, what is the matter?"

"Bruce, are you hurt?"

"I think the blood is from the agent."

"I can't find a pulse, but the body is still warm."

Bruce felt numb. His ears were telling his brain that Loki and Clint were speaking, and his brain was trying to tell him that their arrival meant they needed to move on to the next location, that they needed to continue their search for Tony because they hadn't found him here. Everything in him knew he had to get up, but he couldn't. His muscles weren't working, his nerves weren't feeling, and if his neurons were firing, they were too immersed in a thick, hazy fog to translate any message but one.

_He wasn't H.Y.D.R.A. He wasn't H.Y.D.R.A._

"Barton, he has something in his hand."

"I know. I see it." Pause. "Oh, no."

"What is it? What's the matter?"

Bruce took a shuddering breath and realized his cheeks were wet, his stomach knotting into a tangled mess of anxiety, his hands still gripping the photograph to the point where it began to tear around his fingers.

"Bruce, this isn't your fault. We were misinformed, it was a mistake."

"Dr. Banner, we need you. You have to get up."

"Come on, take my hand."

"This is just another casualty on a long, long list associated with H.Y.D.R.A. and its endeavors. You need to forget about him and focus on the mission at hand."

It was as if Loki had flipped a switch, and with a creasing brow, Bruce sat up straighter and turned to look at him, incredulous. "Just another casualty? _Just another casualty? _Is that all he is to you?"

Loki scowled, looking at the man for a moment before turning to meet Bruce's eyes. "This is war, Doctor. He is not the first to die, and he certainly won't be the last."

"He had a _family. _He had a wife and two beautiful daughters—they are never going to see him again. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Bruce struggled to his feet, teetering when he found his legs were asleep but quickly regaining his balance. "He's never going to walk them down the aisle. He'll never see them graduate, or hold his grandchildren, or grow old with his wife, or see any of their smiles ever again. That is _not _just a casualty, that is a tragedy, and it's my fault. It's _my _fault, so don't tell me to—to forget it because I'm not you, and I'm not Clint, and I'm not Natasha. I can't forget it. I won't forget it. I just _killed _an innocent man, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing okay about that." He was stammering now, losing his words and repeating himself as the situation became more and more real. "This isn't just a side effect of war, this is the _heart _of war. It's not about politics or battle strategy, it's about the men and women who never go home to their families again. This is not, not acceptable. It's unforgivable, and I can't just, just forget it like, like, like I had a bad hair day and cut him off on the freeway!"

Loki stared, utterly silent, glancing between Bruce and Clint and looking extremely unsure.

"Bruce," Clint started, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I know you're upset, but you need to take a deep breath. We won't make you fight anymore, but we do need to keep moving. It's hard, but this man is gone. There's nothing we can do. We _need_ to keep moving."

Bruce ran his hands through his hair and clasped them behind his neck, letting out a long stream of air and trying to stop the tremors running through him. "I… I know. I know." He inhaled and exhaled, shaking his head. "I know. Just… just lead the way…"

"I can do that." Clint carefully removed his hand from the man's arm and started to walk, keeping a close eye on the duo behind him.

Bruce kept his head down, staring at the snow with a blank expression on his face, losing himself to a flood of blurred, incoherent thoughts that made little sense but burned him like fire in his core.

"Dr. Banner…"

Bruce gave the god a sharp look.

"I… I did not intend to… anger you with my words." Loki paused, twisting his lips and massaging the center of his palm with his thumb. "I... do not make a habit of expressing sentiment, and I would strongly suggest you never bring what I am about to say to my attention again, but... you should know you are doing the right thing. None of this destruction is a one-man demolition caused by a lack of control or care for the value and sanctity of life. It is a group effort, the result of a bloody conflict between two associations. You are… a good man, and… I am… I apologize."

Bruce blinked in surprise, mouth slightly agape, and stared with a rather dumbfounded expression on his face. He had been expecting just about anything to come out of Loki's mouth, but encouragement and an apology had not been on that very expansive list.

"Loki—"

"Not a word." Loki glared, placing a finger over the doctor's lips and leaving it there for a few seconds before breezing past him to catch up with Clint. "Come along, Dr. Banner. I think Barton intends to leave us behind if we take too long."

Bruce stood still, staring after him for several moments before continuing on their trek towards the jet. _I'm doing the right thing? _He rubbed his arms, the clothing he had taken from corpses in the aftermath doing little to keep him warm. _I killed him. I killed everyone. If he wasn't H.Y.D.R.A., how can I be certain any of them were? I'm a monster… I'm a monster… I killed them, I killed them, I killed them…_

* * *

Tony didn't know how many hours had passed since he first started pulling at the strap on his right wrist, but given the fact that it was actually starting to give a little, he figured it had to have been three hours at the least. It wasn't as if the material was easy to stretch out, and he had to be careful not to work too hard or too fast, knowing that an accelerated heartbeat would draw the attention of his guards and get him sedated again.

_I can't afford that. I have to get out of here, and I have to be in my right mind when I do. I need to be able to find my suit, send out a signal, escape this… whatever it is, and fight my way out with whatever is on hand._

It wasn't going to be easy, but then again, neither was building a suit of flying armor out of missile parts in a cave in Afghanistan. He had done that, so he could do this. He just needed to get one hand free, and the rest would come to him.

Or at least, that was the plan.

_I have to make things go as smoothly as possible… I should focus on the signal in case they recapture me. I need someone to know where I am, and after that I guess I can go for the suit. Or maybe I should just escape and forget about the suit. It would be harder, but…_

He swallowed hard, slowly beginning to wonder if the sensation of leeway was actually real or simply the result of fatigue and wishful thinking. Maybe he was just having the worst nightmare of his life and none of it was real, but he doubted the probability of that option.

_I can't feel my fingers anymore, but I can feel it cutting into my hand. It just needs to be a little looser… just gotta stretch out the material a little bit more… and I'll be able to get my hand through…_

He still wasn't quite sure what he was going to do once he had accomplished that, but for the moment, he decided his first order of business would be to obtain a weapon from the room he was in. Then he just needed to let someone know where he was, never mind the fact that he didn't even know where he was.

_Just focus on finding a computer. Focus on the computer._

He gave his arm another tug and felt the knuckle of his thumb brush against the restraint, a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth.

_Ohhh, we're halfway there, ohhh, livin' on a prayer…_

* * *

"Agent Byer, this is Romanoff. Do you copy?"

Elaina turned to her right and started typing away, encoding the frequency as waves passed between them. "This is Agent Byer. I copy."

"I don't have a location on Stark, but I know the Iron Man suit has been compromised. I'm trying to find more details on it, but for now, all I know is that it needs to be treated as an explosive weapon. Stark isn't inside, and whatever is inside is capable of mass destruction."

Elaina turned back the other way, hands falling on a second keyboard as she started to look through recent transmissions on the H.Y.D.R.A. lines she had hacked into thus far. "I don't see anything in their communications. Is it possible they gave the suit a code name?"

"Hold on." Natasha disappeared for several moments, and then she returned, her words crackling in and out before gaining stability. "There is a code name, but I'm going to need more time to get that information. For now, tell Clint what you know and stay in touch with me. I'll have more for you soon."

"I'll do that right away. Is there anything I can send your way?" Frowning at the screens, she looked between the two biggest screens. "Actually, where are you? You've fallen off the map."

"I know. I need to stay that way for a while. I can handle myself. Just tell Clint what he needs to know and make sure they get Stark back."

"Yes ma'am."

Elaina killed one connection and immediately brought up a new one, fingers flying unceasingly across three keyboards. She watched for Bifrost activity on one screen, kept an eye on the map on the other, and on the third she was gleaning through messages in search of anything that might tell her where H.Y.D.R.A. had taken Tony Stark.

"Agent Barton," she adjusted her earpiece, "I just spoke with Agent Romanoff. The Iron Man suit has been obtained and compromised by H.Y.D.R.A."

"Isn't that a shame?"

She froze, her hands hovering motionlessly above her many, many keys. "Who's there?" She swallowed, scanning the monitor for any glitch or virus that would have given an outsider access. "What have you done with Agent Barton?"

"I haven't done anything with him," the man replied softly, a quiet chuckle vibrating against her ear. "Tell me, Agent Byer, why are you doing this?"

She wet her lips, looking around the room nervously before calming herself and trying to decipher the mess on her screen. "You didn't answer my question. I have no obligation to answer yours."

"Obligation, no. Incentive, possibly."

She clenched and unclenched her fists, bringing her knuckles up to her mouth and chewing on the knob for several moments before grinding out a response. "You're H.Y.D.R.A. You're a white male, probably in your mid to late forties. You either have a trick up your sleeve, or you're an incredibly good liar. Given your occupation, it could be both." She continued to rattle off all that she could deduce about the man from his voice and mannerisms, hoping to both stall him and help her brain pick up on something important, all the while using every program at her disposal to trace the call back to its source. "Your voice is smooth and relaxed, but I can hear someone moving in the background, so you're either restraining or killing them as we speak. I don't believe you're with Agent Barton, because I believe he could have overpowered you, but you're not a grunt either. You have at least some sort of rank or position in H.Y.D.R.A. that gives you this air of confidence."

"Nicely done." There was a pause, and then the man spoke again. "Agent Byer, I'm going to explain this as quickly and as simply as I can. You are going to shut down all of your computers, you are going to walk out of S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters inconspicuously and quietly, and you are going to sit in your apartment and wait until this whole mess has blown over to show your face again. Are we clear?"

"I refuse to leave this building until I receive orders from someone I can trust." She tried to ignore the quiver in her own voice, breathing slowly through her nose and trying hard not to give away her anxiety over the wire.

He only chuckled, and she could picture him shaking his head disdainfully. "Aren't you going to ask what the incentive is?"

Elaina wet her lips, unsure of how to reply. She didn't want to play into his trap, but she needed to know what she was bargaining for, or she ran the risk of making a massive mistake.

"What is the incentive?" It tasted bitter on her tongue. It tasted like losing.

He replied in a voice that was heavy with sick delight and arrogance. "I'm so glad you asked, my dear."

"Llama?"

Elaina froze, every muscle in her body seizing at the small, frightened voice on the other end of the line. She saw the screen to her right flare, indicating Bifrost activity, but it didn't register. Neither did the fact that she had successfully traced the call back to an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in Venezuela. All she could process was that voice.

"Charlie?" she whispered.

"That's quite the nickname, Agent Byer. I suppose there's some sort of story behind it?"

Elaina shook her head slowly, pressing a hand to her forehead and trying to force herself back into the realm of objectivity. She had been trained for this, had prepared herself in every way that she could for the moment when a loved one would be on the line—for the hard call.

"Your little brother is very… single-minded. He's done nothing but ask for you for the past seven hours. You would think he'd ask for food or water or a blanket at some point, but… no, he just asks for you."

Fingernails dug into her palms, chest heaving as she started to look from screen to screen. Adrenaline dragged her from shock to action so quickly she hardly knew what she was doing, but she was typing purposefully and her hands seemed to have a plan.

"What… what do you want from me?" _Keep him talking. Keep him talking. If you can find him, if Agent Barton can get there in time… _"Up until this morning, I was just a technical analyst. What can I do?"

"Well, that's just it. Up until this morning, you were just a technical analyst, and that wasn't a problem for us. However, you've been doing quite a bit of wirework for Agents Barton and Romanoff, and now you're trying to relay some information we would really rather be kept private." He paused for just a moment, and she held her breath. "I know what you're doing Agent Byer. I already told you what I want, and you haven't forgotten, you're just trying to buy time."

"You're letting me." She shook her head. "Why?"

"Because it doesn't matter. You can trace this call, but if you want your brother to survive, you're not going to tell anyone what you found. You will do as you are told and disappear into irrelevance when all of this is said and done." He laughed again, that sick, cold, mirthless laugh that made her skin crawl a bit more every time she heard it. "Your parents are dead, and your extended family on the other side of the country, completely unconcerned with your wellbeing. Charlie is all you have, and you're all Charlie has. He needs you. Why don't you just walk away? Let the Avengers handle this. You're out of your league, and you know it."

Elaina bit her lip, a few wayward tears sliding down her cheeks, and typed a shorthand message explaining where Tony was as well as the fact that the line had been compromised. She slid the cursor across the screen, hovering over the button that would send the information to the only people she could trust to make good use of it.

"Llama…?"

She screwed her eyes shut, running a hand through her hair and sniffing hard in an attempt to clear the drainage from her sinuses. "Charlie… it's going to be alright…" Lowering her forehead to the table, she continued to speak, forcing each lungful of air into her rebellious chest. "I'm going to see you very soon… okay?"

"…Llama…"

"I love you," she sobbed, lowering a shaking hand to the mouse and biting down on her lip until she tasted blood.

Then Charlie's voice was gone, and the agent's returned. "See? That wasn't so hard. Just leave the building and lay low, and we'll make sure to get your brother back to you."

Elaina shook her head, vision blurred with unshed tears, chest aching from the suffocating lack of oxygen. "No, you won't."

She hit the button.

There was no more than a nanosecond between the click and the sound of gunfire, the miniscule hesitation telling her that they had expected her to cave.

She pushed away from the desk and dropped her head between her knees, gulping air between sobs and trying to keep the flood of anxiety at bay.

_He's gone._

She had made him breakfast that morning. For the first time in over a year, she cooked a real, proper breakfast, with eggs and bacon and toast laid out on the table with orange juice to drink and muffins for dessert like a breakfast should be. He got dressed, and she took him out to the bus stop, making sure he was safely on board before returning home to get her car and go to work.

Now he was gone. Permanently. Indefinitely.

Static blared in her earpiece, but she didn't take it out, focusing on the sound and pretending it had all been a recording. Some sort of sick joke someone had planted to try and throw her off-balance. If it weren't for the fact that she had seen on a map of the world where that call had come from, she might have convinced herself of just such a scenario.

_Charlie… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…_

She didn't know how long she stayed that way, sobbing to the floor and clutching onto the seat of her chair. Her computer pinged multiple times, messages from another computer—probably Agent Barton's—coming in one after the other, increasingly more rapid, like he knew something was wrong. He probably did. He was trained for that sort of thing, right?

_Charlie…_

Slowly, steadily, she moved back into a sitting position and transferred her death grip from the chair to the desk. She could see the messages Barton was sending her, words filtering through the haze but making no sense once they reached her brain.

_I have to get out of here._

She looked between her screens, sniffing and wiping her eyes again and again. She hadn't reported the Bifrost activity, but Thor would find them. They could handle it from here. They knew where Tony was, so her job was done. If she wanted to fall off the grid right then and there, she could, and nobody would get hurt… right?

"Hel—?"

Elaina jumped, pressing a hand to her ear and letting out a quiet sob.

"—body—re?" There were a few more moments of static, and then a voice cut through the noise, urgent and out of breath. "Hello? Hello, is anybody there?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue felt like lead, and every word was a struggle. "I… what do you want?"

"Hold on, let me… this is—this is Agent Byer? Yeah?" He let out a huge sigh of relief, which quickly devolved into a coughing fit. "It's Stark—you know, Iron Man?—and I'm here in… I don't know where I am, but I shot someone, and now they know I escaped, and I have no idea how close behind me they are. Is this—is this like your son or something?"

Elaina took a deep breath, wiping her eyes again and staring at the little red dot on the monitor. "You're there… you're with Charlie?"

"Charlie? Yeah, he's—he's alright, but he looks drugged. Probably. I don't know, he looks out of it. Listen, please tell me you know what's going on, because I don't. I can't contact anyone, I don't know where I am, I have no idea how H.Y.D.R.A. found me or why they're even still a thing or how to find my suit and undo whatever they've done to it—do you know what they've done to it? I think they did something to me—"

"Mr. Stark, slow down, slow down." Elaina pressed on her temples and took another deep breath. "I…" _Charlie is alive. Charlie is alive, and he's with one of the Avengers. He's safe. Focus on the mission. If you don't, they're both dead. You got a second chance. Don't waste it. Focus on the mission. _

"Hello?"

"Barton, Banner, and Loki know where you are and are en route right now." She swallowed, picking up speed as the adrenaline started to overtake her emotional train of thought. "Romanoff does not know your location, although she told me they turned your suit into a bomb or missile of sorts, and Rogers is in the hospital. I have—I have some recent Bifrost activity here, and that might be Thor, but I have no idea where he is. He's been out of the loop since the beginning."

"Oh. Good. Good, great, awesome. Love it."

Elaina looked at the messages from Barton that she had been ignoring and sent a quick reply to let him know she was okay before beginning to type a longer explanation of what was going on. "I'm talking to Barton, I can try and get him on this line—"

"No, don't do that. In fact, you shouldn't have told me anything. Sorry, I wasn't thinking, I'm—I'm all over the place, let me—okay, I'm going to drop the call and focus on getting outside of whatever building I'm in. I'll carry a radio with me and keep it on, but do not communicate with me. They could already be listening, and—wow, if I screwed that up, I'll be so mad."

Elaina rubbed her forehead. "Track don't talk, got it." She wet her lips. "Mr. Stark?"

"Didn't I just say no talking?"

"I know, but… please take care of him. Charlie, I mean, take… take good care of him. Please." She wiped her eyes, realizing she had begun to cry again. "He's all I have. Please."

There was a pause, and then a voice bounced back across the wire. "I couldn't call myself a hero if I didn't." His line went dead, a new signal appearing on the same frequency several minutes later, but he didn't say a word. Tracking him was her job now, and he wouldn't be giving her more help any time soon.

Elaina cracked her knuckles and started to look from screen to screen, fingers flying across the keyboard with an urgency and speed she didn't know she had in her. _Charlie. _She poured herself into her work, banishing any and every thought of him, stuffing anxiety into the pit of her stomach until she was certain her brother's life wouldn't be endangered by her actions a second time.

* * *

Loki jumped, grabbing onto the seat and looking towards the front of the jet as lightning split the sky in half. His stomach dropped, a grimace twisting his features as an overwhelming sense of déjà vu pasted itself across the forefront of his mind.

_"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?"_

_"I'm not overly fond of what follows."_

For a moment, he could almost see Iron Man and Captain America standing just a few feet away, neither of them knowing what he meant but not wanting to find out. Then Thor was on the jet, and then Loki slammed into a mountainside hard enough to form a crater, and he didn't want to think about much after that.

_But I haven't done anything wrong this time._

"Hey, Loki, what's got your brother in such a tizzy?" Clint called, pulling the sticks and trying to get the jet above the clouds.

"He's not my brother," the god mumbled, observing the clouds with cautious, somewhat apprehensive eyes. "And I don't know."

Whatever it was, it was far more than a tizzy. Loki couldn't remember the last time he had seen the skies so black and angry or clouds so warped and chaotic. Thor had blown past the realms of upset or frustrated and straight into livid. Nothing could get in his way when he was like this, this was the anger that nearly caused an all-out war between Jotunheim and Asgard, this was the kind of anger that sent entire armies running home to their mothers.

_But I haven't done anything wrong!_

Two feet hit the roof of the jet, and Loki stood up, walking towards the front to put a completely pointless additional fifteen feet of space between him and his not-brother.

"Loki!" Thor landed on the jet's ramp and immediately closed the gap Loki had just created, fists trembling at his sides. "Did you do this?"

Bruce held his hands up, taking a step forward and trying to keep both of them calm. "Thor, we have no reason to believe Loki did any of this. Why don't you—?"

"I did not ask you, Dr. Banner." Thor grabbed his mischievous counterpart by the shoulders and shook him, repeating the question in a much lower, deadlier tone. "Did you do this, Loki? Did you aid H.Y.D.R.A. in these attacks?"

"What do you think, Thor?" Loki grumbled, trying to pull himself away.

Thor responded by placing his hands on either side of the young god's face and pulling him close. "I need to hear you say it. Tell me that you had nothing to do with this, and I will believe you, I swear. No further questions asked, but you must look me in the eye and tell me." Thor shook him again, his voice sliding from furious to desperate. "Tell me you had nothing to do with this."

Loki stared at him for at least thirty seconds before finally complying. "Fine. If it makes you feel better…" He paused and cleared his throat before continuing. "I had nothing to do with any of these attacks. I have done nothing but assist Agent Barton and Dr. Banner in their endeavors to fight back." Then, as childish as it sounded, he tacked on one last specification. "I didn't do anything wrong."

When Thor didn't let go, Loki thought perhaps he had underestimated the other prince's rage, but then the thunderer gave him a small smile and let his hands drop to his sides.

"I believe you. You had nothing to do with this." Thor ran a hand through his hair and started to pace, still distraught and angry at something, though Loki didn't know what. "I believe you. I do. I—" He looked up suddenly. "Dr. Banner, I apologize. I did not mean to discount you or your input. This was simply a… a complicated matter, and I am rather distracted at the moment, I… I apologize."

Loki frowned, looking between the two men with a furrowed brow and confused eyes. Thor's temper had been on the mend, according to Bruce, and the trickster had seen evidence of it himself over the past several months. Now it seemed he had succumbed to that primal rage once more, and the disorientation that came afterwards was unsettling to trickster.

"It's alright," Bruce replied, trying to keep the air cleared. "It happens. It's alright, Thor."

"Yes, it's alright… I…" Thor ran both his hands through his hair and stopped for a moment, holding his head before dragging them all the way through and resuming his nervous pacing. "I was gone for quite some time. What can I do to help?"

Clint took the opportunity to submit the first request. "Well, for starters, you can get rid of this storm." He flipped a few switches and gestured in the general direction of the screen. "This is where Tony is, and we could definitely use your help there, too."

Thor nodded, taking a deep breath to calm himself and lapsing into silence as he focused on the act of soothing the skies beyond the windshield. Loki and Bruce exchanged glances, bewilderment coloring both of their expressions.

_Odin and Heimdall are the only two people on Asgard who can see what transpires in other realms at will, and Thor would have come into contact with both of them. Either of them would gladly pin this on me, so that doesn't narrow anything down. If I had to guess, I would say it was Odin, simply because Heimdall's subtlety would no doubt go over Thor's head, but Thor has been surprising me lately…_

Loki turned away from the scientist and the thunderer, walking back to his seat and trying to focus on the positives.

_Thor said he believed me, and now that he's here, I should be able to lay any suspicions he may have to rest. Odin and Heimdall practice magic, but neither of them are magically inclined, so they shouldn't notice the broken seals. But Odin made the seals, of course he'll know I've been tampering with them. But he would have no reason to look at the seals because he's arrogant and doesn't believe I can break them. But—_

"You might want to start getting ready. We're less than forty minutes out."

Loki barely responded to Clint's advice, nodding his head briefly before tumbling back into his scattered trains of thought. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Loki." It was Bruce. "Are you alright?"

"Just feeling a little queasy from the turbulence." He forced a smile. "Give me a moment in calmer weather, and I'll be right as rain, ironically enough."

Bruce cracked a smile and squeezed the joint in his hand, lingering for a moment to confirm the god's smile could last more than a few seconds, and then he turned and made his way up to the co-pilot's seat.

_I didn't do anything wrong, but I intend to. _He looked at Thor, who was still lost in his own little world. _It's not really wrong, though. I don't want to destroy anything, I just want freedom, and there's nothing wrong about that. I can escape and go somewhere else and live peacefully. _He knew that was a stretch. He was a god of chaos; peace didn't appeal to him. _There's nothing wrong with leaving. I'm not hurting anyone. I just want to leave. I want my magic back. I want… I want a clean slate. I want to start over. Somewhere. Somehow. _

"Loki, did you hear me?"

The trickster lifted his head. "You said we were getting close."

"I also said to get ready." Clint turned around in his seat and gave the god a cheeky smile. "Unless you're chickening out."

"I am doing no such thing," the liar shot back. "I'll get ready when we're closer."

Clint's smile didn't waver or fade. "Good. I need you out there, man."

"Oh, I know." Giving the archer a snarky little grin of his own, he got to his feet and began sifting through the remaining weapons on the jet.

_Maybe if I use my magic for something before I go, they won't follow me. I could fix the rest of Manhattan, or summon food from the kitchens of Asgard and fill the pantries of the homeless shelters. _

But he knew it wasn't that simple. If he fixed it with ease, they didn't get their justice. If there was no work involved, there were no consequences involved. They wouldn't stand for that, and while he didn't blame them, he didn't want to stay long enough to repair an entire city with his useless, weak, human hands. He didn't want to die in captivity.

_They'll never be satisfied. They'll never let me go. I have no choice but to escape._

Having convinced himself of his goal for what had to have been the hundredth time, he set the matter of liberation aside and focused on the task at hand. Escape was months down the road. Rescuing Tony was less than an hour away, and he had to be completely focused if he wanted to be of any use to them.

And he did. Despite everything, he wanted to be of use to them.

Despite everything, he wanted them to believe he was worth it.

* * *

"We are going to be okay, Charlie. We are gonna be just fine, everything is going to be super fantastic, so we're not freaking out, and we're not—I'm talking to an unconscious nine-year-old to calm myself down. This was not how my day was supposed to go. Geeze, Tony."

Tony pressed his back against the wall and took a quick look around the corner to be sure it was empty before sprinting down the corridor. He was running out of juice, exhausted by all his body had been through and weighed down by the unconscious boy bouncing in his arms.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay." He put Charlie down at the end of the hall and started to rummage through the storage cabinets scattered along the walls. "Find something you can use, find anything you can use."

"…mmm…"

Tony looked around, but there was nobody else in the hallway the boy could have been reacting to. "It's alright, buddy." He continued digging through the shelves, pulling out anything that looked like it could be weaponized and listening intently to the sound of approaching footsteps. "You're gonna be alright. I promise, I will get you out of here, and you're gonna see your sister again. Everything is going to be fine."

Charlie didn't respond, still staring up at the ceiling with a dazed expression on his face. Tony cursed under his breath, feeling like there was a first aid thing he was supposed to be doing. There had to be one. Just some… _thing _he was supposed to do with a drugged up, half-conscious, traumatized child victim.

But he had no idea what it was.

"Focus, Tony." He muttered to himself on a near constant loop, gathering up his scissors and scalpels and other pointy objects and creeping down the hall.

_They're getting closer._

Tony waited at the corner until the first guard came around and then threw his arm out, stabbing the agent in the throat and dropping the body to the floor. Two more rounded the corner, and with a scalpel in each hand, he managed to kill them the same way. But then there were two more, and then three, and then it was a steady flow, and he couldn't hold them off anymore.

_Why aren't they shooting? I should be dead. Not that I want to be, but I should be._

Tony backed up, looking around for anything he could use to defend himself long-distance and finding nothing. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Charlie stirring on the floor and knew the boy was the last line of defense. Once he got to Charlie, he would put the boy behind him, and then there was a wall. No more running. They were trapped.

_Why aren't they shooting? What are they waiting for? _

He reached the boy and carefully pulled him to his feet, trying to stand him up against the wall so he could keep his own eyes on the enemy. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty guards came to a stop three feet away, every gun aimed but not a single one firing.

"Well, this is awkward. Can someone tell me what's going on? I didn't get the memo." His anxiety was easily hidden beneath the wit and sarcasm, but his hands were starting to betray him, and he could only hope the guards didn't see them quivering.

"…Llama…"

"Not now, Charlie." Tony reached back and placed a hand on the boy's head, still watching the guards carefully. Spying one with a hand on his ear, he probed for information, his eyebrow arching slightly. "You have to ask your boss before you pull the trigger? What makes me so special? I mean, besides literally everything about me."

There was more silence, and the majority of the guards in the back began to leave, until only six men in two rows of three remained. The front row stepped forward, one of them holding a pair of handcuffs, while the other row stayed in place and kept their weapons at the ready.

_They want me for… what? They have my suit. Unless they think they'll need my intelligence at some point… or maybe they just need me as a hostage? _He narrowed his eyes, looking from one guard to the next and slightly broadening his stance. _They don't need the kid, though. Once they have me locked up, they'll kill him without thinking twice._

"Look," he started, holding up his hands but keeping them away from the guards. "I'm usually up for just about anything, but do you really think this is the time or the place?" He was stalling. He was panicking and stalling and trying to back up even though it was physically impossible to remove himself any further. "I mean, there's a kid here, and the handcuffs are kinda—"

Tony couldn't think of a single time he had found the sound of an explosion to be so peaceful and reassuring. Smoke had never looked this much like a fluffy cloud. Gunfire had never made him feel this safe.

Knees buckling, he dropped to the floor and pulled the boy down with him, holding Charlie in his lap and trying to catch the breath he hadn't realized he lost. "Charlie… they're here… it's okay now…" He looked up, watching the figures dancing through the smog and taking comfort in the knowledge that some of them were his friends. "We're safe… we're going home…"

"Tony!"

There was a bit of a delay, but Tony managed to get his head up and look for Clint's face among the chaos. Spotting him, the inventor opened his mouth to speak, but for the first time in an extremely long time, he had nothing to say. His tongue had turned to lead, and the heart-pounding adrenaline that had kept him conscious was fading fast.

"Tony, are you with me?" Clint dropped to the ground beside him and gave him a shake, looking at his eyes and pressing two fingers on his throat.

"I'm… yeah." Tony stopped and tried to get his mind back in order, dragging one thought after the other through a swamp of muddled consciousness. "This is Charlie. He's, um, he's some agent's brother. I… I'm okay, I just need to get… get back to the tower and… I need some sleep, yeah, lots of sleep…"

Clint grabbed the unconscious bundle and held the boy tightly to his chest, frowning at the inventor and trying to get him to recognize the urgency of the situation. "Come on, Tony, I need you to get up. We've got to keep moving. Dr. Banner is waiting for you, he can help. He'll know what's wrong."

"I'm coming." Tony stood up with more than a little difficulty and started down the hall behind the archer, the agent, the _angel _that had come with all of Tony's other angel friends to save him in the nick of time like something out of a movie.

_I really thought I was going to have to watch… watch them…_

Forcibly derailing the train of thought, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, placing a hand on the wall when it became necessary to keep himself standing.

"Anthony?"

Tony looked up, blinking a few times and then cracking a tired smile. "Hey, Loki… you come here often?"

Loki examined the billionaire's countenance, pretending he had said nothing at all, and frowned at what he saw. "You've been injured. You don't look well."

"I'm fine, just—just disoriented." He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and kept moving, turning to look behind them more than once. "How far are we from… whatever is getting us out of here?"

Loki looked to Clint for confirmation as he spoke, receiving it halfway through his first sentence. "It's roughly twenty minutes away if we keep running. Do you need to get there faster?"

Tony gave a jerky nod. "I think—I think so, I feel… really…" He staggered and fell against the wall, tugging on the collar of his bloodied, sweat-soaked shirt. "They didn't shoot… why didn't they…?" He took a step forward, but his legs felt like jelly, and his stomach was twisting and turning uncomfortably inside his abdomen. "I can't…" His lungs started to burn, a suffocating sensation crawling over his skin.

"Loki, carry Tony."

Tony felt an arm wrap around his torso, and then he was suspended above the ground, the world around him slowly blurring into long streams of monochromatic grayness.

_Fifty Shades of Grey. _He snorted, trying to point at the wall so Loki would understand the joke. "S-see, it's funny because—because we're running for our lives, and—"

"Relax, Tony." Clint's warbled voice floated from somewhere overhead, each word varying in its level of clarity. "You're an asset. They… so they had no choice but to keep you alive. Adrenaline… from feeling pain so you can… didn't feel it when… found a lab with a lot… they… Charlie… wear… hours… water… help that… experiments…"

After that, not a single word made sense, and with a slurred and incoherent 'shut up,' the drugged-up, billionaire genius slumped in the arms of the mischievous, demi-god liar and surrendered to unconsciousness, hoping the world would make more sense when he woke.

* * *

Thor swung his arm in a wide arc, every muscle in his body turning to stone as he threw Mjolnir full-force into the ground. Fractures split the earth, a shock wave surging outwards and knocking anyone in the immediate area to the ground.

"Go, now!"

Upon his command, Loki and Clint appeared amongst the dust and smoke, each of them taking a somewhat different path to reach the other side of the room. Thor watched them for a second or two and then began to survey the area, ensuring that every H.Y.D.R.A. agent was still recovering from the quake.

"I will join you shortly, my friends. Get Stark and the boy to safety!"

Thor met his brother's eyes for a moment and gave him a brief but encouraging smile before launching back into the fray, scowling as his thoughts turned back to his trip home.

_"You know that Loki is responsible for this destruction."_

_"I know no such thing, and neither do you."_

Grabbing a young woman by the throat, he lifted her off of the ground and stared her down, fire burning in the pit of his stomach as he lost all patience with the universe. "Where is the Iron Man suit?"

She spat, clawing futilely at the skin of the thunder god. "I'll never tell."

"Very well." He shrugged, seemingly unperturbed. "Another!"

She was thrown down the hall like a ragdoll, and he was marching down the corridor in the opposite direction before she even hit the ground, determined to get an answer from someone, somehow, sometime soon.

_"He has done all that was asked of him, albeit reluctantly, and we are pleased with his progress."_

_"Are those the words of your comrades or those of your sentiment?"_

"Where are you keeping the Iron Man suit?" He held yet another agent aloft, feeling the man wriggle beneath his fingertips. "Where is it now?"

Thor was met with silence, and after a few seconds of testing his already worn patience, the stubborn mortal joined his partner down the hall in a heap. It got somewhat quiet after that, the rest of the guards running in various directions as alarms around the building began to scream and whistle.

_"I know all that he has done, but you agreed to give him a chance. Do you intend to recant that decision now?"_

_"Loki needs a firm hand and harsh discipline, or he will never see the error of his ways. If you truly want to help him, you will bring him back and put him where he belongs."_

Thor heard a footfall behind him and whirled around, grabbing the individual by the throat and practically screaming his demands. "Tell me where the Iron Man suit is!"

Loki blinked rapidly, confusion quickly melting into annoyance. "If I knew, that's where I would be headed, you oaf."

Startled, the thunder god immediately released his brother, looking at his hands for a moment before meeting Loki's eyes. "I apologize. I… am not myself."

"Hmm. I've noticed. Perhaps you are the one who needs daily sessions with Dr. Banner." Pointing over his shoulder, he started to walk backwards. "But right now, we need to focus on getting out of here and returning to the Tower."

Thor nodded slowly. "Indeed. I will do my best to focus." He closed the distance between them in two steps, one arm wrapping around Loki's waist while the other hoisted Mjolnir skyward. "Hold on."

"Wait, Thor—!"

They launched into the air, the hammer breaking through the ceiling and the ground that came afterward until the air was clear and they could see the sun again. It took mere seconds for the thunderer to regain his bearings, and then the wind was blowing through their hair, the world blurring into a swirl of colors beneath their feet as they approached the jet at top speed.

"Thor, you imbecile, we could have walked." Loki gripped onto the older brother's armor, watching the ground below with more than a little trepidation. "You forget, this new body won't survive such a fall."

"I did not forget, I simply do not intend to drop you." Thor gave the trickster a cocky smile and continued towards their escaping comrades, the back end of the jet hanging open to enable a quick entry. "I would never drop you."

"Don't get sentimental."

Thor smiled briefly, but there was no mirth to it. When he held Loki this close, he could feel the other's mortality. He could sense the frailty of the body, that little something about the structure that was so prone to breaking, that lack of mass and density that his brother had always had, even in spite of his slight figure.

Thor wasn't stupid, no matter what other people said about him. He knew Loki could—and probably would, at some point—betray him, but he didn't understand the need to lock him up and beat him into submission. The Avengers had earned his trust and his faith, and he believed they had what it took to change his brother for the better. Even if they couldn't, Loki living the way he was now was certainly a preferable alternative to the punishment Odin intended to hand down.

_"His birthright was to die."_

Both feet touched down on the aircraft, his arms falling to his sides and allowing Loki to regain his footing. He couldn't lift his eyes from the ground, his mind entirely consumed by the words he had exchanged with his father not hours before. He didn't know how Natasha and Clint and even Steve could do it—how they could shut down their emotions until there was a more opportune time to deal with them.

_"You are not a hero for bringing him home. You know that, don't you? There is nothing special about seeing an infant lying in the bloody snow, screaming and crying, completely helpless, and deciding to care for it."_

Looking to Clint, Thor begged the same question of him that he had of the agents in the base down below. "Where is the Iron Man suit?"

"We're trying to figure that out," Clint replied, engrossed in his switches and sticks. "Elaina is on the wire right now, but she says there are at least three places it could be going, and we don't know which ones are decoys. Natasha has been single-handedly keeping H.Y.D.R.A. out of the Tower and interrogating as many agents as she can along the way, but there's only so much she can do."

Thor scowled, turning Mjolnir over in his hands idly. "What are those three locations?"

"Shanghai, China; Karachi, Pakistan; and Tokyo, Japan." Clint flipped on the autopilot and turned around in his chair, giving up on the idea of multitasking. "We have no idea which one is the real target."

Loki crossed his arms over his chest, pursing his lips as he often did when in deep thought. "What is significant about these places?"

"Population," was the immediate reply. "These are some of the biggest cities in the world. If a bomb that large goes off in any one of them, it will kill millions."

Thor shook his head. "No, that isn't right." He rubbed at his temple, pushing all thoughts of home aside for just a moment. "They know they cannot win as long as we are free. That is why they captured Dr. Banner, tried to kill Captain, and abducted Tony. They need to divide us and keep us subdued, and until they do that, they have no business trying to achieve their ultimate goal."

Clint nodded slowly, rubbing his chin. "I see your point. So, if we're the actual target, where would they attack?" He snapped his fingers as soon as he finished speaking, smacking himself on the forehead shortly after. "Dumb question. They'll attack us at home."

"Manhattan," Loki muttered.

"This is H.Y.D.R.A. we're talking about. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire state of New York was in danger." Clint turned back around and regained manual control of the craft. "It's the one place we would all go to regroup, and two of our members are already there. They already knocked Tony for a loop, and…" They all glanced at Bruce, none of them saying anything, but all of them thinking it.

_Dr. Banner is not okay._

They watched as the doctor checked Tony and Charlie for injuries, his expression flat and somewhat dazed, his movements disjointed and lacking the urgency that should have been present given the situation.

"It's just the three of us." Clint shook his head, clearing his throat. "That's my point."

Thor turned and walked towards the edge of the plane ramp, setting his jaw as he watched the underground base go up in smoke, the earth caving in as the support system dissolved. "Let me handle the suit of iron. I am sure Natasha could use some assistance back at the tower."

"Thor—"

He smiled at the two over his shoulder. "I have a plan. Besides, I can arrive much quicker on my own than on this airship."

Not waiting for a response, he jumped from the plane and began flying north, his mind immediately sinking back into the wreckage he had somehow managed to stay above during the recent conversation.

_"There are many in the Nine Realms who feel that justice has not been served. They question why Jotunheim and Midgard received recompense, but not them."_

_"Loki was sent to Jotunheim to prevent a war that would have killed millions, and he is repairing Midgard because we believe it will help him understand the damage he has done. To those who wish to see him tossed from realm to realm and subjected to any number of violent punishments, I strongly advise they consider the difference between justice and revenge."_

He could no longer see distinct shapes on the land and water below, the colors all blurring together and fading into a smooth, glass-like surface. He was over North America now, and he knew it wouldn't be long before he saw that familiar red and gold puppet dancing across the sky.

_"You were on Midgard for three days. Loki has been on Midgard for six months."_

_"It is completely different. I was foolish, but Loki is wounded and angry and confused. I needed simple correction, but Loki needs long-term guidance. He is lost, can you not see?"_

Thor slowed his speed just enough to distinguish between cloud layers, knowing the long, white trail of smoke would be his best chance of locating the actual machine. However, the skies were still clear, so he sped up once more, still scanning the heavens for any sign of the bomb.

_"I thought you had learned to trust that I know what I am doing."_

_"I do trust you, Father, but you are not infallible, and I believe you are making a mistake. There is no harm in leaving him as he is now, and it is not as though we will run out of time to try other methods. I plead with you, Father, allow us to continue down this path."_

Thor saw a faint glimmer out of the corner of his eye and turned sharply, starting off in the direction of the flashing light and reaching out his hand. He grasped onto the back of the artificial neck as he flew overhead, coming to a stop only to change directions and begin flying straight up, the world beneath him melting away into oblivion.

_"Enough, Thor. I have made my decision. It is time for you to choose where your loyalties lie. Loki or Asgard?"_

_"Father, you are asking me to choose between my family and my home. That is unfair!"_

He felt the air thinning and then disappearing altogether, fury blinding him to anything but the path directly in front of him, the path that was leading him straight into outer space.

_"Asgard needs her prince and future king. Loki is a lost cause who is stealing precious time away from your responsibilities. You cannot have both. You cannot handle both."_

_"Father… please, do not do this. Please, I beg of you…"_

He left the Troposphere.

_"Choose, Thor."_

Stratosphere, Mesosphere…

_"…"_

Thermosphere…

_"I choose Loki."_

Exosphere.

_"Then you need not come home again."_

Thor swung his entire body full circle, launching the bomb into deep space with an anguished cry the lack of atmosphere muted on his lips. His eyes burned, his chest ached, his hands shook, and his throat was tight with unshed tears.

_"On this, we agree. For this realm is not home without him."_

He felt something tug him on the wrist and soon realized it was Mjolnir trying to pull him back down to Earth. Complying with its wishes, he began his descent, body numb and mind completely unaware of his surroundings. He let his hammer—his beloved hammer, his consistent, reliable, trustworthy hammer—lead him back to the Avengers Tower, down through every layer of atmosphere he had mindlessly blown through.

He landed on the roof with less than a little grace and dropped to his knees on impact. He didn't move for the longest time. He just sat there, staring at the hands in his lap, forcing himself to breathe, and trying not to give up on the hope that, one day, his family would be whole again.

_"So be it."_

_"So be it, indeed."_

Thor lowered his face into his hands and wept.


	23. Chapter 23

"Well, this is interesting." Loki slipped his hands into his pockets and moseyed up to the dining table, giving the soldier a wry smile. "I was enjoying a book of poetry when, lo and behold, my door opened all by itself. I waited for several minutes, but no one came in. I had to ask Jarvis where I was supposed to go."

Steve gave him a weak smile and gestured to the space next to him, a steaming cup of coffee waiting for the trickster to consume it. "I'm sorry. This was a bit of an impulse decision. I didn't mean to disturb you."

Loki only smiled. "You didn't disturb me, Captain." He sat down and made himself comfortable, giving the coffee a sniff. "But the fact is I was napping, when so gently you came rapping, and so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door."

"That I scarce was sure I heard you. Here, I opened wide the door; darkness there and nothing more." Steve took a quick drink and continued, the words coming to him effortlessly, as if he'd recited it a thousand times before. "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; but the silence was unbroken and the stillness gave no token, and the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 'Lenore?' This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, 'Lenore!' Merely this and nothing more."

Loki lifted the mug to his lips and sipped, unable to ignore the chill travelling up and down his spine. "Captain, I didn't know you enjoyed poetry."

"It's just a hobby." Steve smiled weakly, running a hand through his hair. "I don't read it much anymore, but Tony convinced me to memorize 'Oh Captain, My Captain,' and I brushed up on some others while I was at it."

Loki shook his head. "Do your best not to lie on a deck, cold and dead." He took another sip and then set the mug aside, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "But you didn't let me out of my cell unsupervised to idly chat. So tell me, oh Captain, my captain, what can I do for you today?"

Steve chuckled but quickly lost the laughter to a sigh, turning his head to look out the window and remaining silent for several moments before giving the god an answer. "Things aren't good. I… I don't know what to do. Tony won't come out of his lab, Bruce won't leave his bedroom, and Thor hasn't spoken a word since he got back from outer space. Clint and Natasha seem alright, but I can never really tell with them, and I…" He stared down at the tabletop then, rubbing his forehead and swallowing thickly. "I was thinking I could talk to them, and I was hoping you would help me with that."

Frowning, the god of lies took another drink, contemplating the proposal for a few moments. Thor was on that list, which meant Steve no doubt intended to get the two to talk, and Loki did not like the idea of that at all.

"Captain," he started, inhaling deeply and trying to find a polite way to decline. "Do you think that is the best idea? I cooperated during the attack because I had no choice, but that doesn't mean this team is more inclined to trust me nor that they should."

"This isn't about trust. It's about honesty."

Loki snorted. "Definitely not the best idea, then."

"Why not? You know how to pick out the truth in other people because you have to know what it is you're fighting against when you lie." Steve ran a hand through his hair and then winced, reaching down to press his injured side. "I… I can't talk to Tony. We're too different, and knowing me, I'll only end up yelling at him. That won't help at all."

"Well, I can agree with that." Humming, the trickster rose to his feet and began to pace. "I don't suppose it would be a good idea for Dr. Banner and I to have a mutually therapeutic relationship, so you should talk to him." He stopped and stared out the window, cringing inwardly at his own choice of words.

Therapeutic. _Relationship._

How did he get from declining to advising?

Steve nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. But you know that would leave Thor."

Loki glared, squaring his shoulders. _Of course I know that, you idiot._

"I understand your relationship with him is… not the best, and I know you might not want to talk to him, but it would really be good for him to know you care right now. Even if you don't, just giving him a little something to hold on to would help."

Loki cast him a sideways glance, keeping his lips in a tight, thin line. _If I don't. If. What is that supposed to mean? _He turned his gaze towards the streets with a sigh, watching the humans scurry down the sidewalks in the snow. _I don't want to encourage Thor to start treating me like his brother again, but if he isn't talking, it must be bad, and I don't suppose he'll want to discuss his weaknesses with his fellow heroes. His pride wouldn't allow for that. _

"If you don't want to—"

"No, I will." Loki turned away from the window suddenly, picking up his coffee cup and continuing to pace. "Don't expect any miracles, but I will talk to him."

Relief washed over the soldier's features, and he nodded his head, allowing a small smile to tug at the corners of his mouth. "I understand. Thank you."

"Indeed. You would do well to speak with Natasha and Barton also. Even if they appear to be alright, they might need more coaxing. They're trained to hide this sort of thing, after all." Finishing the beverage, he turned and started towards the door. "I wish you the best of luck, Captain."

"Same to you," Steve replied. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son. The jaws that bite, the claws that catch."

Loki ran a hand through his hair and laughed. "I should very much like to discuss poetry with you at length sometime."

"It would be my pleasure." He could hear the smile in Steve's voice.

How did he get from advising to helping?

Shaking his head, Loki left the social room behind and continued into the hall, walking down the corridor towards the elevator. He had no idea what he was going to say or how he was going to approach the inventor, but he had agreed to help, so he would at least make an attempt.

Loki had noticed—more than noticed, really—the immediate decline in team activity after the unexpected attack on S.H.I.E.L.D. They were all a bit of a mess when they got back to the tower, and after everyone had taken about an hour to freshen up, Steve called them into the dining hall for dinner. Loki, Clint, and Steve had been the only ones to actually show up.

_Natasha joined us later, though. She most likely needed some time to think, which I don't blame her for, given the circumstances. However, the others have made themselves scarce for three days now. This can't possibly be healthy, and it's certainly a strategic weak point. _

"Loki, would you like me to turn off the music?"

Loki pulled himself from his thoughts, glancing at the ceiling in confusion. "What mus—" He stopped short, the elevator door sliding apart and allowing the most obnoxious ruckus he had ever heard to come flooding in. "Is _that _what he calls music? Yes, please, turn it off."

Loki shook his head and heaved a sigh, stepping into the hall and making his way to the lab with a renewed distaste for the situation he found himself in. "Tell me, Jarvis, how much has our friend had to drink?"

"Too much," the AI replied.

"Well, that is very specific of you." Loki let out a quiet chuckle, but it was bitter and short-lived, his head wagging as he tried to scrape together some idea of what he was going to say when he entered the room. He didn't know the inventor that well, and the few times they had interacted were not all that pleasant.

Loki gave four sharp knocks on the glass to let the other know he was coming in, and then he stepped back and waited for the electronic housekeeper to grant him entry. Seconds later, the door was gone, and Loki walked inside, casting a disdainful yet apprehensive look around the room.

"How do you work in this mess?" the god questioned, picking up a random tool and waving it in the inventor's general direction. "It's disgraceful."

"Jarvis, I told you not to let anyone in." Tony didn't look up from where he was working, shoulders hunched and eyes focused on some sort of metal plate beneath them. "And it's not a mess. It's chaotic organization."

Loki allowed a hint of curiosity to light his eyes, walking across the room and peering over the man's shoulder. "You've been down here for three days. Is this what you've been doing the whole time?"

"No." Tony still refused to even glance at him. "Do you know why I come down here?"

"To be alone and think." There was no hesitation, because he knew both factually and personally the need for that sort of safe haven. "But when you spend several days locked away down here with such limited interaction with the outside world, you start to jeopardize your health, and certain people get worried."

Tony scoffed, turning the plate vertically and sliding a chip into one of the many sockets there. "Cap should be worried about his own issues, not mine."

"I think you are one of his issues, Anthony." Loki swept the tools and gadgets towards the end of the table, seating himself next to the inventor's work and peering down at him unsympathetically. "You're practically drowning in a sea of doubt and self-pity. He's not going to turn a blind eye to that."

Tony actually raised his head at that, glaring callously at the god who had so rudely invaded his personal sanctuary. "You shouldn't even be out of your cell, let alone down here talking to me about my mental state. I have everything under control, and—"

He was interrupted by the device in his hands sending off a slew of sparks, forcing him to drop it and grab onto the scalded skin it left behind. Cursing, he shook the injured hand rapidly, using the other to grab a glass of scotch that had been forgotten in the wake of creative genius.

"I can see that," the god intoned dryly. He paused and then nodded his head in the general direction of the liquid vice. "How many of those have you had?"

"I could be wrong, but I think that's none of your business." Tony finished the remainder of his glass and set it down, rubbing his temple and letting out a sigh.

Loki arched a brow at the display, a low chuckle rising in his throat. "You are a child, Anthony Stark. Do you know that?"

"Shut up."

Leaning down, Loki sniffed the billionaire a few times, a sour expression contorting his features. He reeked of drinking, body odor, and wearing the same outfit three days in a row. If the bags under his eyes were any indication, he hadn't allowed himself the luxury of sleep, and the faint trembling in his hands could have been from the alcohol, but Loki was more inclined to believe he was hungry.

"When was the last time you showered?"

Tony groaned. "What are you, my mother?"

"Don't get smart with me." His light-hearted joke did little to erase the lines on either man's face. "I'm just a concerned party. You don't look well, and you aren't acting like yourself. I don't need to be one of your teammates to know that something is wrong."

Tony pushed away from the desk and started to swivel in his chair, idly drumming his fingers on the armrest and alternating between watching the ceiling lights and staring at his feet. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"Just start talking," Loki advised, recalling the guidance Dr. Banner had given him during a similar situation. "It will help you put your thoughts in order. Something will come out of the mess eventually."

Tony snorted. "Eventually." He swirled a few more times, shoulders heaving as he unleashed an exceptionally deep sigh. "I created the Iron Man suit to save. First, it was just me and a friend, then it was civilians, and then it was the world. But it was never… _never_ meant to endanger and destroy and… blow things up that are good things."

Loki said nothing, placing his hands in his lap and listening intently, watching the other male with an earnest expression.

"I haven't made weapons in years, but somehow, my creations are still killing people. I hate it, but I don't know how to stop it. It's like… like I'm _meant_ to create weapons of mass destruction, and no matter what I do to try and stop it, that will always be the end result."

"What will be?" Loki questioned, pursing his lips.

Tony laughed bitterly, running both hands through his hair and lowering his head between his knees. "A body count. There was a man… I told him I didn't want my only legacy to be a body count. He did, though. Lots of people wanted me to keep doing what I was doing, and… and I thought when I became Iron Man, when I started helping people and improving the state of the world, I had… I had somehow proven them wrong. I had shown everyone I don't need to kill people to be worth millions. My potential… at its best, doesn't have to… to kill people. I'm worth _more _than that."

Loki nodded his head but didn't say a word, hoping his silence would encourage the other to say more.

"They took my suit… they took it, and they turned it into everything it was never meant to be." Tony's voice dropped off at the end, slowly sitting up. "I didn't even fix the problem. Thor did. Everyone did. _You _did, and you're not even a member of this team. I was unconscious when the suit blew up. I did _nothing _at all to fix the problem _I _made."

"Everyone has days when they can't contribute, Anthony." Loki folded his arms over his chest. "It isn't as if you didn't try. You saved Charlie and helped him escape. You managed to make contact with Agent Byer despite the odds stacked against you, which gave us your location. You did the best you could."

"But it was _my _suit." Tony scowled. "It was _my _weapon."

"So what?" Loki paused to let the words sink in, observing Tony's baffled and somewhat angry expression before continuing. "Everyone on the team has been a threat. Everyone on the team has been a hero. You make mistakes, and you learn from them. You cannot single-handedly save the world every time."

Tony opened his mouth to speak, but Loki cut him off, his voice quiet but hard and unwavering. "You pretend to be arrogant. You brag about your accomplishments and the sacrifices you've made, but being a hero has never been about the glory for you. It has always been about redemption." Loki stared at the man before him, searching his eyes for any indication that the words hit home. "Anthony, you cannot control what you did in the past. You can only control what you do from here on out. The Iron Man suit was stopped. Period. Nothing else matters."

Tony shook his head, hands balled into fists. "No. No, no, see, that's where you're wrong. It does matter. If we hadn't stopped it, millions of people would have died. I screwed up, and that's on me. I need to make sure that kind of turnout isn't possible. I need to design a better suit."

"For goodness' sake, Anthony, you cannot prevent every possible negative outcome." Loki sighed, wondering why on earth he had agreed to this and why Steve thought he would be of any help to the distraught inventor. "Listen, I understand where you're coming from, and I think you are wise to learn from your mistakes and prepare for the future, but you are taking this too far. You cannot save everyone."

"Do you have any idea how many people would be still be alive today if there had been a plan in place before your attack?" Tony got to his feet, jabbing a finger into the center of the god's chest. "Fury knew about Asgard, and he had the Avengers Initiative all sketched out, but he wasn't ready. He wasn't ready, and people died."

"There was more than a lack of preparation, Anthony. If Fury hadn't been tampering with the Tesseract, it wouldn't have mattered how prepared he was, he would have been fine. You all would have. If anything, you should stop trying so hard to plan ahead and focus more on what you're doing in the moment. Consider the consequences of leaving your team with one man down right after H.Y.D.R.A. reared its ugly head. Consider the consequences of pushing away your closest friends when you may need their trust and cooperation in the coming days."

Silence settled over the room, the two men staring each other down unwaveringly. Tony glared, but he couldn't think of a good counterargument, and Loki was content to let him dwell on his own speechlessness for a few moments.

Then the captive god shook his head, pushed the man's finger aside, and began to walk towards the door. "I can't tell you what to believe, what to think, or how to feel. I can only tell you what I know to be true." He took a few steps and then stopped, speaking over his shoulder. "If I might offer another piece of advice, you should sincerely consider what it is that makes you valuable as a person. You know who you are. You know you're a hero, but if you continue to base your worth on how others perceive you, you're going to wind up a villain like me."

Swallowing, he resumed his exit, walking through the doorway and into the hall with a solid lump settling in the pit of his stomach. He might not have helped Anthony at all, but at least Steve would be pleased. Loki had done what was asked of him, and he should have been able to leave it at that, but he felt as though he should have done more. As though there should have been some magic word he could say to fix the problem.

_Hearts are not so easily mended._

Loki might have been famous for his silver tongue, but words only had so much power. There was only so much he could fix with words, and the less one was inclined to listen, the less he could do for them.

_Thor._

There was not a single fiber in his being that was ready or willing to participate in the conversation, but there was even less he could do to avoid it. Regardless of how he felt, he had to get the job done, and he could only hope the conversation would be as bearable as the one he had with Tony.

_Right._

* * *

"Bruce?" Steve let his fist fall against the door a few more times, sighing quietly when he heard no response. "I know you're not really up to it, but I need to talk to you." He waited for another minute or so and then pulled the master keycard from his pocket. "I'm going to come in now. Okay?"

Still nothing.

_Well, we're off to a great start. _Steve swiped the card and let himself into the room, pocketing the key and taking a couple looks around before slowly approaching the bed.

"Bruce, it's me." Steve reached out and gently shook the man, trying to coax some sort of activity out of him. "Hey. Come on, Bruce, say something."

Slowly, wearily, the doctor opened his eyes. He stared at Steve for a second and then heaved a sigh, eyes half lidded as he whispered his reply. "What?"

Steve wet his lips, pausing for a moment when he realized he didn't know what to say. "Bruce… you've been in here for three days." He raked his hands through his hair and tried to think of a nicer way to tell the doctor he was an absolute wreck. "You need to get up and do something. We're all worried about you."

"Can't." Bruce practically breathed the word.

Steve frowned. "Can you try?"

Bruce only managed to hold an irritated expression for a second or two, and then it was back to that same, flat affect he'd had since he stepped off the jet several days prior.

_Something is wrong._ Steve looked around the room, spying a few discarded books on the floor and pair of pants that had been haphazardly tossed over the back of a chair. _I don't know what to do. _Turning back to the bed, he tried again to get the man to talk to him.

"This doesn't look like you're upset about what happened in Canada, this looks like you're sick." Steve waited a moment, but there was nothing. "Bruce, you have to help me out here. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know what you need."

Bruce snorted, a bitter expression twisting his lips. "Canada."

Silence.

"This is about Canada, then." Steve wet his lips, tentatively crouching down beside the bed and trying to meet the doctor's eyes. "I don't know much about what happened. I was given a very, very quick briefing when I woke up in the hospital." He paused, watching the other's expression and, upon receiving no response, prompting him to share. "Talk to me."

Bruce heaved a sigh. "There's nothing to talk about. I… killed people. I killed innocent people." He shuddered, slipping down into the sheets and turning his face into the pillow. "I killed people, and then I took their clothes to keep me warm. I…" He shifted.

Steve inhaled slowly, trying to think of something to say and coming up blank, which was frustrating because he really did understand. Maybe not in the same way, maybe not in the same time, maybe not even in the same world or context or set of circumstances, but he did understand. He had killed people. He had missed his target and struck a civilian in the process. He watched as the smoke rose up from Dresden, knowing his country had just bombed a largely civilian population for the sake of sending a message.

He knew how that felt, and he wanted to say as much, but he didn't know how.

"Bruce… I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help."

Bruce sighed again, his arm moving around below the blanket. "I don't know what you can do. I thought I would be able to work through this but… I think I'm relapsing."

Steve stopped, his expression contorting into one of uncomfortable confusion. "What?"

"Depression. I thought I had it under control… but apparently not." He looked at Steve for a moment, taking in his expression of bewilderment, and then stated the problem as clearly as he could. "I'm having a major depressive episode. I think Canada was the trigger."

Steve gave a sharp nod, chewing on his lip as worry started to knot in his stomach. He had no idea how to treat depression or what Bruce wanted him to do about it. He was raised in a generation that didn't talk about mental illness, and he had never personally known anyone with a mental disorder, at least not that he was aware of. If it were any kind of physical ailment, he would know exactly what to do, but he couldn't put an ice pack on depression or elevate it above the heart. Tony would know what to do, but Tony wasn't all together himself. Thor was equally clueless and useless in this particular regard, and Natasha didn't seem like the person to go to with emotional things.

_It is an emotional thing, right?_

"I…" He pressed his lips together for a moment, briefly considering Clint as someone who could help. "I don't know what to do. You don't look good, Bruce, you really don't."

For a moment, Steve thought he wasn't going to get a response, but then Bruce started to nod his head. "Stupid, isn't it?"

Steve immediately shook his head, moving closer and pulling the covers down and away from the doctor's face. "No, it's not. I just don't know anything about it, so you need to tell me if you need me to… take you to the hospital, or call someone, or do something."

Bruce jerked his arm, taking a deep breath before he spoke, almost as if the very act of speaking was too physically draining to handle. "I… need help."

"Okay." Steve started to nod, chewing on his lip as he racked his brain for an idea of what the next step might be. He knew now that Bruce needed help, but he needed to know _more _than that. "Should I… call someone?"

Bruce sighed. "I don't know. I can't… think."

_That can't be good. _Steve rubbed the back of his neck and then put one knee up on the bed, pulling back the covers and wrapping an arm around Bruce's legs. "Hold on to me."

"Steve—" he reached up to grab the soldier's shirt, "—stop."

Steve did stop, but not because of the request. He jerked his head towards the doctor's hand, not picking him up but not letting him go. "What's that?"

"It's…" Bruce stared at it, almost as if he wasn't sure how to name the scrap of paper in his hands. "It's just a picture."

Steve gave a slow nod and tightened his hold, lifting the doctor into his arms and turning towards the door. "What is it a picture of?"

Bruce shook his head. "I…" He tucked it back into his shirt and continued to shake his head, slumping against the soldier's chest. "I can't keep my eyes open."

"Bruce—"

"Don't." He practically breathed the words, giving his head one last shake before going completely still. "I'm so tired."

"Alright." Steve continued to walk, chewing on his lip before asking another question, despite the man's plea to be left alone. "Do you want me to take you to the hospital?"

"No." Bruce let out a long stream of air, sounding as though he had just climbed a flight of stairs. "Don't take me to the hospital. I don't need a hospital."

Steve looked down at him, furrowing his brow. "Can I believe you when you say that?"

Bruce nodded. "I just… got overwhelmed. I need some time…"

"You need help. You said so." Steve stepped onto the elevator and shifted the man closer, extending one finger and pushing the button that would take him to his preferred floor. "You need to eat something, at least."

Bruce didn't respond.

_If I can get him set up on the couch, I can make him something to eat and get him some water. I'll call Clint and see if he can help, and then I'll start looking for psychiatrists in the area. _Steve took a deep breath and watched the numbers climb as the elevator rose higher, hoping he seemed more calm and in control than he felt. _I wonder how Loki is doing…_

* * *

Loki raised and lowered his hand for the third time, walking away from the door only to turn around and walk back a few seconds later. His fingers twitched unceasingly at his sides, eyes looking up one end of the hall and down the other to ensure he was alone.

_It's just a talk. I am only here to talk. It doesn't change anything. I'm following orders—_never mind the fact that he didn't take orders from Steve, because that was a completely different fit of denial that he wasn't prepared to deal with—_and it isn't as if this is going to become a regular thing. _

Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and raised his hand for the fourth time, knocking sharply before dropping it back to his side and waiting. There were shuffling sounds from inside the dwelling, and a few moments later, the door creaked open to reveal a very tired, very disheveled god of thunder. Surprise registered on the blonde's features for just a moment, but it quickly faded, replaced by an expression that could only be described as heartbreak.

"Thor," the trickster began, "it has come to my attention that you are not talking." He paused then, observing the other's expression for a moment before continuing. "The Captain has asked me to speak with you. I don't suppose you would be willing to cooperate with me on this, would you?"

Thor stared at him for a moment, and then he forced a weak smile. "You should go back to your room." His voice was hoarse from disuse, and when combined with the dark circles under his eyes and his incredibly unkempt mane, he looked sickly.

"Well, I don't believe I am going to do that, so you might as well throw me a bone." Loki crossed his arms over his chest, unmoving.

Thor only looked at him.

Rising up onto his tiptoes, the trickster tilted his body a bit to look around the thunderer, a soft hum escaping him at the sight. "You have a nice room. It's very you."

For a moment, it looked as though the older god was going to stare him into defeat, but then he started to turn. He observed the room—the warm, golden brown room adorned with crimson accents and the crackling fireplace—and then turned back towards the hall.

"Indeed," the blonde replied. "It is suited to me."

Loki nodded, lowering himself onto his heels again and meeting Thor's gaze unwaveringly. "I would agree that it is suited to you, but is it so well suited that you must spend all of your time locked away in here? It is very uncharacteristic of you."

Thor let out a sigh, a bitter, mirthless grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. He didn't say a word, but he didn't have to, because Loki already knew exactly what he was thinking. He was thinking he should have known Loki would only engage in small talk—only compliment his choices, only say something remotely congenial to him—for the sake of dragging out an answer.

"You mistake my trickery for indifference." Loki replied as if he had heard the man's thoughts spoken aloud. "You are not speaking. You are not engaging. It's obvious that something is wrong with you."

Thor fell against the doorframe with a chuckle, that sickened, wounded look never fading from his face. "You are not wrong."

"Then tell me what it is, and I won't have to finagle it out of you." Loki stepped forward and leaned down slightly, looking up into the thunderer's eyes and refusing to let him look away. "What could possibly have upset you so much that you would act this way?"

"You should not worry about me." Thor shook his head. "You should tell Captain Rogers not to worry, either. I will manage." He took a step back and grabbed the door, unable to meet Loki's eyes as he swung it shut.

Loki stared for a moment at the wooden panel, blinking in surprise as he realized Thor had just declined to speak with him. Thor, the god of emotional erraticism. Thor, his doting not-brother who took any and every opportunity to pretend they had a relationship. Thor, who had never been able to keep his mouth shut, even when his life quite literally depended on it. Thor, who was so obviously suffering and falling apart at the seams.

Thor wouldn't talk to him.

Loki shook himself, turning away from the door and starting down the hall. _Well, I tried. I did what was asked of me, and Steve can look at the footage if he doesn't believe me. There really isn't anything else I can do for him if he won't even speak to me. _He slowed to a stop, staring at his feet, knitting his brows together. _Why won't he speak to me? I know he was giving me a wide berth on Dr. Banner's request, but if I initiated the conversation, there should be no reason why he wouldn't speak to me. What's wrong with him?_

Loki turned and stared at the door.

_I should leave. This isn't my problem._

He took a step, biting down on his lip.

_If he needs help, he should get it from his teammates._

He took another step, his fingers picking at the fibers of his sleeves.

_Why would Captain Rogers even ask me to do this?_

He came to a stop in front of the door, reaching out to grab the knob.

_I have no desire whatsoever to be involved in this._

He twisted it and let himself in, his lips moving before his brain knew exactly what it was he was going to say.

"If you don't want to tell anyone what's wrong with you, that's fine, you're welcome to crash and burn in pitiful loneliness if that's what you like. But you are a fool if you think you can pretend to be my brother—_insist _upon being my brother—and then get away with shutting the door in my face." Loki threw both hands in the general direction of the fixture in question, a dull ache forming in his chest as he continued to speak. "If you really, truly want me to be your brother, then you have to treat me as such all the time. You don't get to shut me out when it's convenient for you just because my indifference worked in your favor this time around. You cannot just _stop _being an incessantly affectionate and bumbling idiot and not tell me why or what I can do to fix it. I deserve to know—"

Loki stopped short as he was crushed against Thor's chest, the older god wrapping both arms around his body and pulling him into an embrace so tight it was almost painful. His shoulders were shaking, and as the seconds passed, the flustered young man realized the older Asgardian was laughing.

"Loki, you are quite the piece of work." Thor pressed his forehead against the god's shoulder, still holding him tightly. "You are right. You are my brother, whom I love, and I should be honest with you."

"I was speaking hypoth—"

"However," Thor interrupted him, pulling away and giving the trickster a sincere smile, "it is because I love you that I cannot tell you what troubles me so, but there is no need for anyone to worry. I know now that I have made the right decision."

Loki blinked, startled by the sudden turn of events and completely caught off-guard by the inexplicable change of heart. "I beg your pardon?"

"You are pardoned." Thor grinned at him and pushed him towards the door. "Everything will be fine, Loki. I know this now."

"You idiot, you didn't even let me finish. How could you possibly know from half of a conversation whether or not everything is going to be fine?" Loki crossed his arms over his chest, frustration drawing deep lines on his face. "You are the one who is a piece of work."

Thor only smiled some more. "We are both pieces of work." Then, placing both hands on Loki's shoulders, he began to push once more. "You should go see if you can assist the Captain in preparing the noonday meal. I will see you in the dining room later."

Loki glared at him, pursing his lips and scanning the thunderer's features carefully. He didn't know what he had done to cause the sudden change, but Thor seemed to genuinely feel better about whatever had been bothering him. If there was a hidden switch, Loki had unknowingly flipped it, and the problem appeared to have resolved itself.

_I don't suppose there's any point in questioning him further. If he's functioning, he'll be fine. _Just as long as he didn't stop talking again.

"Well, if you no longer require my presence to keep you from spiraling downward into a pit of endless despair, I believe I will do as you suggested and join Captain Rogers in the kitchen." Brushing the large hands off of his shoulders, he turned towards the door and began to make his way out of the room. "And Thor, just so we're on the same page, this changes nothing. I don't want you coming by to visit me any time soon unless it's an emergency."

"I know." Thor inhaled deeply, an almost relieved expression softening his features. "I know, Loki, and that is alright with me."

Loki rolled his eyes and stepped out into the corridor, slipping his hands into his pockets and moving towards the elevator with a sigh. "Idiot." He said the right word, but it didn't sound right. It didn't sound as irritated and fed up as he wanted it to.

_It doesn't matter. _He glanced down at his pocketed hands. _I'm halfway through the second seal, and the more seals I break, the easier it's going to be. Once I have full control of my magic, escape will be incredibly easy._

It would just take time and patience and a little bit of opportunity.

_None of this matters. None of this changes anything. _

It still didn't sound right.

* * *

"He fell asleep a little while ago."

Clint nodded in Steve's general direction, crossing both arms over his chest and observing the sleeping doctor on the couch. Bruce's hair was greasy, his face unshaven, and his clothing rumpled and bloodstained. He hadn't done a thing since the attack but sleep.

"I don't know what to do. He won't eat, he won't drink, and he won't stand up." Steve approached the archer and offered him a steaming cup of coffee before joining him in his silent observation.

Clint wet his lips, rubbing his forehead. "Yeah, that could definitely be depression. I don't know his history or what his symptoms were like in the past, but if he said its depression, he probably recognizes what he's going through. So…" He stopped, pressing his palms to his eyes and taking a deep breath before continuing. "So, did you call anyone?"

Steve shook his head. "I don't know who to call. I tried to find a phone book, but I guess those aren't as popular as they used to be. I asked Jarvis, but there were… so many, I didn't know what to do." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I called you after Jarvis gave me the list, and you know the rest."

"Right." Clint pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. "Jarivs, transfer that list you gave Steve onto my phone. No emails, no faxes, just phone numbers, names and locations."

"Right away, sir."

Clint nodded and downed the first half of his coffee. "Steve, stay here with Bruce. When he wakes up, make him a protein smoothie of some sort and make him drink it. He needs to get some nutrients in his body."

"I can do that." Steve nodded and returned to the kitchenette, opening up the fridge and going through the contents. "How long will it take to get him an appointment?"

"It usually takes a while. There's a shortage of psychiatrists everywhere, all the time, always." Clint dialed the first number and held the phone to his ear. "I'll tell you when I know more."

"When you know more what?" Loki entered the room and made a beeline for the kitchen area. "What's going on?"

Steve gestured over his shoulder. "Bruce isn't doing well. Clint's calling a psychiatrist."

"Um," Clint held the phone away from his ear for a moment, turning around to stare at the duo. "Would someone like to tell me why a genocidal maniac is wandering around this tower unsupervised?"

Steve raised his hand slightly. "My fault. I needed his help with something."

"What part of unsupervised genocidal maniac seemed like a good solution to your problem?" Clint opened his mouth to continue and then stopped, putting the phone back against his ear. "Hello, my name is Clint and I'm calling on behalf of a friend. When is the next available appointment for a new patient?"

Loki arched a brow at the interaction and then turned back towards Steve. "Who is he calling?"

"He's trying to make an appointment with a psychiatrist for Dr. Banner." Steve pulled his cell phone out of his pocket—because no matter what Tony said, he did know how to use it—and began his search for a list of protein rich foods.

"Yes, I see." Loki paused. "No, I don't. Who is he calling?"

Steve gave him a small smile. "A psychiatrist is a doctor who can prescribe medication for mental health problems."

Loki leaned against the counter, his brow furrowed. "What exactly are mental health problems?"

"Well, that's a pretty broad question. There are a lot of different kinds of mental disorders, and their symptoms vary." Steve shrugged his shoulders. "I honestly don't know much myself—it wasn't common for people to talk about mental health in my time."

"But it still existed?"

Before Steve could answer, Clint pulled the phone away from his ear and began speaking. "Mental disorders were frowned upon and poorly treated all throughout history. People were considered to be stupid and crazy and not much more than that, many of them were held in facilities that treated them like animals and tried to beat their insanity out of them. It's only in recent years we've begun to understand the complexity of the human mind and treat mental health problems properly and humanely. Get a book on it if you want to know more." He pulled the phone up to his ear again and stepped away. "Loki, make yourself useful or go back to your cell. Steve, mix up things like yogurt, bananas, milk, and then slip in some things he won't be able to taste like spinach and peas. Hello, my name is Clint, and I'm calling on behalf of a friend…"

Steve and Loki looked at each other for a moment and then promptly got back to work, the former going to the fridge while the latter looked around the room for something to do.

"So," Steve started, glancing over his shoulder before continuing. "How did it go?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders, crouching down to look in the cabinets. "I honestly can't say. Thor seemed much better, but I have no idea what I did, and Tony wasn't very forthcoming."

Nodding his head, the soldier scooped yogurt into the blender. "You did what you could. That's all I asked."

Loki didn't say a work but gave a couple nods and continued to look through the contents of the lower cabinets. He saw a can with a fish on it and pulled it closer, inspecting the label. _Salmon?_

"Thank you, by the way."

Steve's words pulled the god out of his momentary distraction, and he cast a confused glance up at the less-than-spangled man with a plan. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said thank you." Steve peeled a few bananas and dropped them in with the yogurt. "You didn't have to talk to Tony or Thor. You did, and I really appreciate it."

Loki blinked, unable to recall if he had ever been thanked for having a conversation with someone. He was sure he had, and he was sure this was a perfectly normal reaction, but it caught him off guard. Because he didn't know why he had agreed. Because there should have been some resistance on his part when Steve asked him. Because somewhere along the line of his first day in custody to him sitting on the kitchen floor with a can of salmon in his hands, he had stopped fighting the situation.

_Why?_

"You're welcome." Loki wet his lips and lifted the can in Steve's general direction. "Can you make use of this sal-mon?"

Steve cracked a smile. "It's pronounced salmon, and… not right now, but that does give me an idea for when he starts eating a little more. Go ahead and pull out three or four cans. See if there's any Carnation Instant Breakfast down there, too."

Loki gave a slight nod and buried himself in the cabinet again. _It's not as if I don't want to leave, but I… I have become comfortable here. _Just thinking about it twisted a knot into his stomach. _I was starting to get comfortable when they sent me to Jotunheim. _He scowled. _I think about it, and I realize how illogical it is, but when I don't… _

It felt natural. He couldn't deny that no matter how much he wanted to. Interacting with the Avengers had once been an exhausting task that required all of his focus to be on the lookout for potential traps. Now it was just as casual as conversations with Thor and Frigga had once been.

_Until I think about it._

Loki startled at the sudden and unexpected roar of the blender, smacking his head against the wood. Both hands immediately flew to cover the impact site, tears springing in his eyes and a curse leaving his lips as he was reminded once again of his painfully fragile, human state.

"Oh my gosh, are you alright?"

Loki gave a brief nod, aware of Steve's hand now resting on his shoulder. "Yes," he hissed. "I was just startled, that's all."

Steve grabbed Loki's wrists and carefully pulled them away, lightly running his finger over the already swollen spot and letting out a sigh. "Ouch." Lowering his hands, he gave the god a stern, tight-lipped look. "I think you should get some ice on that and rest for a bit."

"Captain, I'm fine." He ran his hand over the sore spot, trying not to wince and failing. How could a blow to the head cause such a hard lump to form? It wasn't as if anything was shoved under the surface of his skin. It simply appeared.

"Take my advice on this one, Loki. I won't let Clint lock you up, I promise." Steve winked and then stepped away to return to his blender. "I'm starting it now, okay?"

Loki gave him a half-hearted nod and stood up, still jumping slightly at the sheer volume of the machine. He made his way over to the refrigerator and looked at it for a moment, trying to figure out where the ice would be before finally just opening all of the doors and looking around. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but he found something that was both pliable and cold, and he decided that was what he was going to use.

_I suppose that's what they mean when they say seeing stars…_

Holding the cold bag to the back of his head, he sat down on one of the barstools and watched Steve work, once again struck by the situation he was in. Unfortunately, he wasn't given much time to think about it.

"Loki, go lie down on the couch and keep an eye on Bruce." Clint had pulled the phone away from his ear again. "Try not to fall asleep, though. Just in case."

Loki wasn't quite sure what the archer meant by that, but he was in no mood to question him, so he obediently made his way over to the couch across from Bruce and flopped onto the cushions.

For a moment, he wondered what had gotten the others so worried, but the longer he stared at Bruce's sleeping form, the more he began to see how unwell he was. He was still in the bloody clothing from Canada, although he was half wrapped in a blanket now, and his hair was a tangled mess. His face looked sunken and pale and exhausted, even in rest.

_He really isn't doing well._

Loki leaned onto his side and placed the painkilling cold pack behind his head, letting out a soft sigh and trying to keep his eyes on Bruce's face. He could hear Clint and Steve exchanging hushed words, and while he tried to ignore them, he knew exactly what they were talking about.

_He's not doing well at all._

* * *

Clint reached out and tucked the blanket around Loki's shoulders, adjusting the fabric for what must have been the twentieth time and looking out the window just past the couch. He watched the lights shining down below, gaze lingering for a moment before he stepped away and returned to the couch on the opposite side of the living space.

Bruce had gone back to his room shortly after dinner began, irritated by the unnecessary noise. Tony, who was the source of the noise, had actually joined them for dinner and socialized before disappearing once again into the depths of his lab. Thor came out to the kitchen to get some food and a soda, but he didn't stay very long. It was better, though, and that was something.

Loki had slept through all of it. He stayed awake long enough to appease Clint, and then he started to drift, eventually falling asleep and remaining that way until the room was empty and skies were dark.

_He's really dropped his guard since the H.Y.D.R.A. attacks. _Then the thought continued, drawing a frown on his features as it went. _We have, too, because we let him sleep out here, but he actually left himself exposed around the enemy. He's comfortable enough to sleep when he's in the room with us, knowing that any one of us could kill him in a heartbeat. _

He cracked a smile then, shaking his head and trying not to laugh.

_It's actually working. I can't believe it. Their stupid plan is actually working. He actually has to make a conscious effort to think of us as enemies._

Clint would be the first to say he hadn't expected things to go as well as they did, but he couldn't deny what he had seen over the past several days. He knew Loki still had some way of escaping the tower, and the archer didn't doubt he would make an attempt, but the raw anger and malice was gone.

_So, what will you do when you get out? Where will you go? Who will you become?_

As if responding to the unspoken question, Loki began to stir on the couch, bringing an arm up to cover his eyes and letting out a loud moan. Clint let out an amused snort at the sight.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty."

Loki startled, sitting up suddenly and immediately regretting the decision. "Barton…" He held his head and lowered it back down to the couch, squinting in the darkness. "Why am I out here?"

"You fell asleep on the couch. I didn't feel like carrying you back to your cell." Clint watched the other's expression, looking for any hints as to how he felt about that term.

Loki didn't give him any, nodding his head slowly and frowning at the blanket. "You should have woken me." Being careful not to move too fast, he stood up and began to fold the soft fabric.

"I didn't have anything better to do." Clint shrugged his shoulders, getting to his feet and waiting until the god finished his task to walk away. "Come on. I'll take you back to your cell."

Loki nodded and set the folded blanket on the couch, crossing the room and quickly falling in step beside the archer. "Were you able to make an appointment with the… ah, the…"

"Psychiatrist? Yes. I made an appointment for early next week, which is incredible." Clint slipped his hands into his pockets, casting the other a sideways glance. "How's your head?"

Loki looked at him for a moment, clearly guarded but not appearing angry. "It hurts." He spoke crisply, turning his head to watch the wall for a moment before continuing with a seemingly unrelated inquiry. "Barton, do you ever wake up with bruises on your body that you can't explain?"

Clint laughed at that, shaking his head. "Welcome to the human race, Loki."

Loki glared, if only for a moment, and responded with a simple hum. He may have been warming up to them, but evidently, he still didn't like the idea of being human and still viewed them as inferior beings.

_Well, it's a process. I can't expect complete reformation overnight._

Clint came to a stop outside Loki's door and pressed his thumb against the panel, waiting until he heard the click to open the door and let the god inside. Loki strode past him, making a beeline for the bed, and Clint took the opportunity to scan the room.

He didn't notice anything particularly extraordinary about the room itself, and the contents were less than mind-blowing. Still, the longer he looked, the more he started to see traces of the time Loki had spent with them. If his eyes were right—and they always were—he saw Thor's cape peeking out from underneath the comforter, he saw the little woven bracelet Brianna had made dangling from the switch on the bedside lamp, and he saw that the book on Captain America had been read more than once.

_I wonder if he realizes how invested he's becoming. _

"Are you waiting for something?"

Clint was pulled back into the world of social interaction, and with a quick shake of the head, he dismissed the question. "No. I just wanted to see how long it would take for my face to annoy you."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Immature."

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Loki's disdain increased tenfold, but Clint just gave him a snarky little grin and stepped out of the room, closing the door and locking it behind him. He stared at the floor for a second, and then he chuckled, walking down the hall in the direction of his own room with an incredulous but pleased smile on his face.

_It really might work. Thor and Bruce and their crazy, stupid, dangerous plan might actually wind up turning Loki into an asset. _

Not that he was holding his breath.

_But wouldn't that be something?_


	24. Chapter 24

_I had to._

Loki hit the ground hard, allowing the blunt force to paralyze him for a few minutes while he caught his breath. His chest ached, heart hammering against the inside of his ribcage, and he could feel the dull pain spreading throughout his body.

_It was a stupid move, but what else was I supposed to do?_

Loki rolled over and dragged himself onto his feet, making it no more than two steps before doubling over in agony. He grit his teeth and clawed at the flesh beneath his shirt, knowing it wouldn't help but determined to do something to make the pain go away.

_Where am I? _

It didn't look like much of anywhere. He was definitely on Midgard, but beyond that, he was completely clueless. It was a wooded area, shrouded in pitch blackness and tucked far away from civilization. Far enough, at least, that he couldn't see any city lights or hear anything that wasn't an animal or the wind.

_What happened?_

He remembered a blast and thick, black smoke. He remembered rumbling beneath his feet like an earthquake and his heart hammering against his ribs. He remembered blood—no, he didn't remember it, he saw it on himself, present tense—and he remembered the bodies scattered across the living room floor, but it had happened so fast.

_I had to do it._

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Loki scanned the man in front of him, masking his concern with an expression of extreme disapproval. "It has only been a month since you fell ill with the depression."

Bruce gave him a tired smile and a sigh, as if he had been asked that question millions of times over the past few months, which was quite possibly the case.

"I apologize. If you're here, you must believe you're ready." Loki sipped his tea and gave the doctor a tight-lipped smile. "I suppose this is the part where I talk to you and tell you how things have been over the past few weeks."

"I suppose it is, yes." Bruce ran a hand through his hair and gave the god another smile. "We can talk about whatever you want. I really just want to make sure everything's okay."

"Everything is fine." Loki immediately realized he had replied too quickly, and he mentally kicked himself for the slip-up.

"Really?" Bruce arched his brow, pursing his lips and giving the trickster a quick onceover. "I find that hard to believe. I know I've been out of the loop for a while, but… _everything_ is fine?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders with an off-handed wave. "Well, I suppose there is the whole 'sentenced to captivity and servitude for the rest of my exasperatingly short, mortal lifespan' aspect of things, but given the situation, things are rather satisfactory."

Bruce cracked a small smile and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs and taking a moment to examine the other's features. "You look different."

"Do I?" Loki took another sip of his drink and gave the man a brief smile. "I suppose I feel different."

Bruce nodded. "You look healthier."

"I've been sleeping a bit better. That might have something to do with it." Loki shrugged his shoulders. "I honestly couldn't tell you."

"Do you know why you've been sleeping better?" the doctor asked.

Loki paused for a moment, not wanting to repeat his earlier mistake. "Mm… Nothing that comes to mind." Which was a lie, because he knew exactly why he had been sleeping better, he just didn't want to admit it.

Loki had been living in the Tower almost a year, and despite the innumerable opportunities every member of the team had to hurt or kill him, he was alive and well. Granted, there was that little strangling incident with Agent Barton, but Loki had to take at least half of the responsibility for that one. To make a long story short, Loki no longer felt like he had to sleep with one eye open.

It was a nice feeling. It wouldn't matter when he cracked the final seal in four months' time, but it was a nice feeling.

"Even if you don't know why, it's still good to take advantage of it. Having a healthy sleep schedule can make all the difference in the world." Bruce took a drink and continued. "What have you been doing to keep busy? I know things have slowed down now that winter is here."

"We're still working in the soup kitchens. It's not as if there isn't anything to do." Loki finished the rest of his tea and set the cup down on the table between them. "The Captain took Thor and I to Brooklyn. I don't actually know how I got dragged along, but it was pleasant enough." Then he smiled. "Perhaps he should be the one having sessions with you, Dr. Banner. He spent the majority of the trip talking about his childhood."

Bruce smiled back. "Maybe you're right." He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "Have you been spending a lot of time with Steve and Thor?"

Loki gave the doctor a warning glare. "Don't get any ideas. I told you I don't know how I got dragged along."

Bruce held up his hands in a show of surrender. "I didn't get any ideas, I was only asking. Though I have to say, from the way you responded, you probably have been spending some quality time with them."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Only as a last resort, I assure you."

Except for the time Steve took them to see the statue of liberty. Or when they made a trip to the library and checked out several books on the past seventy years of Midgardian history before proceeding to read them together and share the interesting facts they found. Or that time Steve taught them how to play poker, and Loki won fifty thousand M&amp;Ms.

But those were just a few isolated cases. Most of the time, he fought it as long as he could.

"I see." Bruce continued to grin, like he knew something Loki didn't. "It sounds like you're doing better without the sessions than you did with them. How does that work?"

"Perhaps," the god started, inspecting his fingernails with more intensity than necessary. "Perhaps I was so used to meeting with you every day that I wasn't as… resistant to their attempts at socialization."

Bruce chuckled, shaking his head and meeting the trickster's eyes with a wide smile. "That's as close to saying you missed me as I'm going to get, isn't it?"

"I don't know if I did miss you." Loki gave him another warning glance and then returned to staring at his nails. "However, I certainly hope you don't intend to become a recluse again, because this is a rather interesting way to pass the time."

"Fair enough." Bruce raised his cup, extending his arm towards the makeshift patient. "To almost missing things."

"You foolish man." Loki rolled his eyes but picked up his cup nonetheless, tapping it against the side of its twin. "To almost missing things."

* * *

_Dr. Banner should be alright. Thor got the worst of the attack, and there was a fair amount of distance between them. He should be fine, as long as he keeps the Beast in check._

Loki stumbled slightly, turning in a tight circle and trying to figure out where he was and where he wanted to go. More importantly, he needed to figure out where _they _were and where _they _were going. Were they close? Did they know where he was? Was he being tracked? Had they put another chip on him one night while he was sleeping?

But they wouldn't have done that. They thought they had everything under control. They trusted his human weakness and believed it would keep him from causing any problems. Maybe they had trusted him a little bit, too.

_It doesn't matter. I have to get out of here._

He stumbled sideways, barely catching himself before continuing in the direction of what appeared to be a mountainside. If he could find a cave of some sort, he could take refuge there until his magic reserves were built back up. It would only take a week or so, and then he would be able to use one of his paths between the worlds and leave.

_It was unexpected and sudden, but it wasn't as if I didn't know it was a possibility. I prepared for this. I got everything I needed, and I said my goodbyes._

* * *

"You _are _tired, and don't you dare argue with me about it." Loki grabbed Brianna beneath her arms and lifted her up, situating her on his hip. "Now that street work has started up again, I'm certain we'll be seeing more of each other."

Brianna shook her head, yawning, and slumped against his chest. "No, we won't. Mrs. Thompson is mean. She'll tell me no."

"Then I will come and get you, and Mrs. Thompson will have to answer to me." Loki continued to walk with the little girl in his arms, smiling to himself when he felt her hands grasping the fabric of his shirt. "Have you made any friends at the orphanage?"

Brianna nodded. "Trish. I like her."

"Then stay with Trish, and don't let anything separate you. It isn't good to be alone." Loki realized he had probably encouraged some sort of rebellion with those words, but he honestly couldn't care less about the rules. He didn't want Brianna to be lonely, and that was more important to him than her obedience. He didn't want her to grow angry and cold, and given that he wouldn't be around much longer, he had to give her something to hold on to.

"Brianna, we're almost there." Loki squeezed the body in his arms just a little, getting her attention before continuing. "Is there anything else you want to tell me before I drop you off?"

Brianna shrugged her shoulders, eyelids drooping. "Alex is mean. Brittney is scared all the time, and I don't know how to make her feel better. Gabi can't hear, so I'm try'na learn sign language so we can talk, but… I sorta just stay with Trish and read books and play with my Barbie."

Loki blinked. "Your what?"

"My doll, silly." Brianna giggled, dropping her head onto his shoulder and yawning once more. "Trish and I share her. Her name is Samantha."

Loki gave a brief nod. "I see. That's good."

"Mhm."

They continued down the street, half-melted snow that refused to go away crunching beneath his boots every now and then. Brianna inhaled deeply and then let out a long sigh, her fingers twirling idly through his hair. She pointed out Christmas lights as they went, her chest vibrating softly against his when she spoke.

_You precious little thing._

Coming to a stop outside of the orphanage, Loki crouched down and put the girl back on her own two feet. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he gave her a smile in return, just as they did every time they parted ways. Normally, Brianna would go back inside after he smiled, and Loki would return to wherever Clint was watching him from, but this time was different.

"Brianna, I have something for you." He spoke softly, taking the girl's hands in his to keep her attention. "It's a very special something, and I need you to listen carefully to these instructions. Alright?"

Brianna blinked, staring at him for a moment before slowly nodding.

"Good girl." He shifted slightly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a green, black, and tan woven bracelet. "This is for you. It's a good luck bracelet." By which he meant it was imbued with magical properties of his own creation. "It will keep other people from harming you, but you must wear it all the time. Do you understand?"

"Even when I take a bath?" she asked.

Loki fought a smile. "Yes, even when you take a bath."

"What about when I swim?"

"Yes, you must wear it then, too."

"What about—"

"Brianna." He took her by the shoulders and stared straight into her eyes. "You must wear this bracelet _always_. It won't break, or fade, or fray, or stop working so long as you keep it on. If you take it off, it cannot protect you, and it will start to age." He removed his hands from her shoulders and held the bracelet out again. "Do you understand?"

Brianna nodded somberly, staring at his hands with wide, fascinated eyes.

"Truly?" he pressed.

She wet her lips, and then she nodded again, enthusiasm returning to her movements and expressions. "I can do that. I'll wear it always, I promise."

Loki gave her a warm smile. "Good girl. Now, hold out your arm."

She did as she was told, and Loki placed the bracelet on her arm, effectively forming a barrier between her and anyone who would try to bring her harm. Brianna was safe, not from illness or human mortality or even accidents of her own doing, but she was safe from every other living creature in the entire universe.

Loki considered that to be quite the accomplishment.

"Goodnight, Levi!" Brianna threw her arms around the god's neck and gave him a hug, which he half returned, and then she turned and ran towards the orphanage. "See you next week!"

He waved back, a smile still lingering on his lips. "Indeed."

Loki waited until she was inside the building to begin the trek back to the street where he had last seen his watcher. His hands and forearms were throbbing with a dull ache, and he had no desire to get back to work, but unfortunately for him, that wasn't his choice to make.

_Three more months, and then it won't matter anymore. _He turned down the appropriate alleyway and waved to get Clint's attention. _Three more months, and all of this will be a thing of the past._

* * *

Loki lifted his head and pulled his hair back out of his face, taking a deep breath and spitting on the dirt in an attempt to get the taste of bile out of his mouth. He wiped his face on his sleeve and tried to collect himself, gulping air by the lungful.

_It must be my magic. I only used a small amount to make Brianna's bracelet. Unless someone tries to hurt her, it doesn't need to drain any power from me, but… this was different. I used much more than I was ready for, even before the teleportation._

Coughing, he started to climb the mountainside, dragging his feet and leaning heavily against the wall of solid rock. Hopefully, he would be able to find shelter and rest before his legs gave out completely.

Hopefully.

_Just breathe. You're almost there… you're almost there._

His knee gave, sending him down to the ground with a muffled yelp. One hand wandered down to the joint, gingerly pressing at the muscles around it and drawing a hiss from between his lips.

_I probably just twisted something. Maybe I hurt it when I hit the ground? Or maybe something from the blast? No, it wouldn't have waited this long to act up. Would it?_

Dragging himself back onto his feet, he started to walk again. He kept as much weight off of the limb as possible and was pleased to find that the pain faded a little more with every step. Soon, there was nothing but a dull ache in the joint, which convinced him that he had simply overworked it.

_It's been about an hour since I wound up here, and I haven't seen a single jet or helicopter in the sky. I suppose this means they didn't put a tracking device on me, but that doesn't mean they won't be able to find me._

Loki came to a stop, peering into a black hole and considering the prospects therein. It was a fairly big cave, and it was possible there were animals living inside, but it suited his needs, and he was too exhausted to look any longer.

_Oh, Captain. _He slumped against the wall, concealing his body around the corner the natural rock cutout provided, and allowed a bitter smile to taint his features. _My Captain. What do you think of me now, I wonder?_

* * *

"Here, listen to this."

Loki looked up from his book and waited for Steve to continue, tucking his fingers between the pages and debating whether or not he wanted to share his own findings.

"'A snowflake fell into my hand, a tiny, fragile gem, a frosty crystal flowerlet, with petals, but no stem. I wondered at the beauty, of its intricate design, I breathed, the snowflake vanished, but for moments, it was mine.'" Steve smiled a little, and Loki could only speculate as to what the poem had brought to the soldier's mind.

"I used to laugh at poems about the brevity of life. I don't suppose I can anymore." But he chuckled anyway, shifting on the bed and drawing his text a little closer to himself. "I like this one. 'I went to find the pot of gold, that's waiting where the rainbow ends. I searched and searched and searched and searched, and searched and searched, and then—there it was, deep in the grass, under an old and twisty bough. It's mine, it's mine, it's mine at last… what do I search for now?'"

Steve let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. "That's a good question. Which one is that?"

"The Search, by Shel Silverstein." Loki kept his eyes on his book, flipping through the pages and skimming the contents idly. "Yours?"

"A Snowflake Fell, by Jack Prelutsky." Then, after a pause, he continued. "It makes me think of the forties, I guess. I was always out of place, and then for a couple of years, I wasn't." He shook his head, an almost bitter smile dampening his features. "Now it's gone, and there are days I wish they never pulled me out of the ice."

Loki didn't say anything for a little while, biting on his lips and trying to figure out how to proceed. They were alone, and it wasn't as if Steve hadn't already seen every side the god had to offer. Jarvis was recording, but no one actually watched the footage unless he started acting funny.

Loki wouldn't be sticking around long enough for it to matter, anyway.

"Well," the god started, not looking up from his book and maintaining a completely blank expression. "If you had never come out of the ice, then you and I never would have met. I don't particularly like the thought of that."

There was silence for several moments, but Loki refused to meet the other's eyes. His book had become the most fascinating piece of literature on the planet, despite the fact that he wasn't actually reading any of the words he was staring at, and no matter what, he was determined to keep his head down.

"I don't like that thought of that, either." Steve shifted in his seat, and Loki could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke again. "Who would I read poetry with? What would I do with my evenings?"

Loki cast a brief glance in the man's general direction. "I suppose the world will never know." He wet his lip and turned a page, tucking the number away in his head so he would remember where he had actually stopped reading.

Silence filled the space between them, and Loki was quite content to leave it that way. Steve, on the other hand, had just been gathering his thoughts, and it didn't take him very long to break the silence with a quiet, reminiscent sigh.

"What?" the god snapped.

"Just thinking." Steve gave him a smile, his eyes filled with something Loki couldn't quite identify. "One year ago today, I came into this room to get you for the very first time."

Loki dropped his head back down and turned another page. "Oh, please. Don't get sentimental."

Steve only laughed, idly tracing his fingers over the comforter and still smiling. "You were so angry, and you hated me so much. I mean, you hated all of us, but you really liked to take it out on me."

Loki rolled his eyes, letting out a huff. "Yes, I recall. I also recall you trying to behave professionally and making an absolute mess of it. You're the one who gave me all of the openings instead of keeping me at a distance."

"I guess it's just not in my nature to kick a man when he's down."

Loki scoffed. _I wasn't down, I was furious._

Steve reached out and brushed his hand against the trickster's arm, no doubt trying to get him to look up from his book, which he would not. "I know you don't care, but can you look at me for a second?"

Loki did meet his eyes, but it was for the sole purpose of scolding. "Honestly, Captain—"

"Just let me say this. You don't even have to reply, just listen." Steve wet his lips and took a deep breath, taking one last moment to align his thoughts before speaking. "I am so proud of you. You are so far from where you started, and what you've—hey, look at me."

Loki forced himself to look at the other, swatting the soldier's hand off of his arm and biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep his emotions off of his face.

"I'm not trying to make you angry." Steve smiled warmly. "I just want you to know that what you've done with yourself, and the choices you've been making… it's really good. I don't mean morally good, either, although it is. You seem happier and more relaxed. You seem to be more… content with yourself, and I wanted you to know that I am… really glad you gave this a chance."

"I really didn't," the god intoned.

Steve only laughed, leaning back against the bedpost and lifting his book from his lap. "Well, you can take it or leave it. Just some food for thought."

Loki didn't say a word, because as much as he wanted to, he really couldn't deny any of what Steve had said. He couldn't deny that he had given it a chance. He couldn't deny that he was happier. He couldn't deny that some days, when he didn't take the time to resist and calculate and scheme, he enjoyed being on Midgard.

He couldn't deny any of it because he had broken the last seal three days ago, fully unlocking his magic, and yet there he was, sitting in his cell with Captain America, reading poetry, and waiting for dinnertime to arrive.

He couldn't deny a thing.

Yet.

* * *

_Idiot._

Loki looked down at the blood on his hands and frowned, rubbing his fingers together and feeling the partially dried substance crumble beneath the friction. He could feel it on his face, mingled with sweat, running down his neck into his shirt.

_Thor…_

Loki turned his head, leaning back against the wall and trying to get a good look at the mouth of the cave. He could see the far right side of the opening, but the little alcove he had found was angled enough that the majority was hidden from sight. It wouldn't be easy to spot him from the outside, but unfortunately, that also made it difficult to watch for potential threats from the inside.

_They would have been delayed for obvious reasons, _he glanced at his bloody hands again, _but they would definitely be out searching for me by now. I have no idea how far away from the Tower I am. I need to find a map of some sort… _

He lurched forward, wrapping both hands around his midsection and lowering his head between his knees. Every movement sent a new wave of pain up his spine, and he froze on the spot, biting down on his lip to keep from shouting.

_It hurts… It hurts so much…_

He did his best to stay still, closing his eyes and bitterly thinking to himself that Steve or Clint or Natasha would know exactly what to do to fix him. They would know how to help him. They wouldn't actually do it—not now, maybe not ever again—but there was something comforting about knowing there was someone close by with the knowledge and experience to keep you alive.

_It doesn't matter. I can't go back._

Loki's entire body went rigid as he heard the leaves rustling outside. He held his breath and listened, waiting for the movements to return. It was probably an animal. Either that, or the wind, but it still got his heart to pound against the inside of his chest.

Then he heard a voice.

Pushing himself back against the wall, Loki slid onto his feet and waited in silence, staring into the blackness. He was in the middle of nowhere, so the chances of the noise being an innocent passerby was slim at best. He had seen no tents, no campers, no trail markers, no _anything _for the past several miles.

"Loki?"

It was Steve.

Loki forced himself to breathe and rubbed his fingertips together, sparks scattering across the stone floor, a steady throb forming in his palm. He had enough magic left in him to fight, but only if Steve was alone.

"Loki, I know you're in there."

Loki didn't know how they could have pinpointed his location unless they really had stuck another tracking chip in him. He ran a hand down the back of his neck but felt nothing.

"Loki." Steve was speaking with authority now, using a professional tone that, surprisingly, was still thick with sincerity. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be. Just surrender."

Loki almost laughed, one hand coming up to cover his mouth as he considered the prospect. _Surrender? If I surrender, I'm as good as dead. The Allfather will hand down whatever unspeakable sentence got me into this mess in the first place. I won't be able to get my magic back this time. If I surrender, I'll die. Powerless, alone, and in pain._

"Loki—"

"Be _quiet, _Captain." Loki righted himself and stepped away from the wall, walking towards the exit with slow, painful, purposeful steps. "I don't want to listen to your bargains and your deals. I refuse to surrender, so let's get this show on the road."

He lifted his hand, green flames bursting across the surface of his skin and licking the air feverishly, hungry for the anticipated release. It hurt, but the alternative would hurt more. He didn't have a choice.

"Loki—"

Loki threw his hand out, emerald blazes surging from the cave, growing and expanding until they hit an object of resistance. Outside, he could hear Steve being that object. Inside, he nearly collapsed from the pain, trying to keep his hands at his sides and failing more than once.

"Loki, please—"

Reaching out with both of his arms, the god swallowed another shout and released a wave of energy towards the exit. He heard Steve grunt, heard the sound of magic against metal, and he sent out another surge.

_I can't breathe._

Loki stopped attacking for a moment and focused on breathing, dragging air down into his lungs despite his body's lack of cooperation. He took a few more steps and the night sky was above him, the cave fading into the background as Steve got back to his feet.

"Loki." Steve was just a few feet away, holding his shield at the ready. "You need to surrender."

Loki chuckled, shaking his head. "I can't do that, Captain. You cannot talk me into it." His expression darkened, small flickers and flashes darting across his hands. "You need to leave. Now."

Steve looked at him with a pained expression. "You know I can't."

"Why not? No one has to know." Loki grinned and kept up the façade of control, knowing the fight would be over as soon as Steve realized how weak he really was. "Or is it your pride keeping you here? You can't accept the fact that I fooled you. You were _so _proud, and now you have to prove that there was something to be proud of in the first place."

Steve shook his head. "Not this time. No games, Loki. Put away your magic."

Loki brought his fingers together and stared the other down. "I can kill you with a simple snap of my fingers." He would probably kill himself in the process, given how his body had reacted to magic thus far, but he could still do it.

He would do it.

"This isn't something we can negotiate." Steve crouched slightly, preparing himself for whatever kind of attack Loki might have up his sleeve. "You broke the terms of our agreement. Now, there are consequences, and you can't just avoid them."

Loki shook his head and screwed his eyes shut, the mask slowly beginning to slip. "I liked you. I really did, Captain." He shook his head again, clenching his fists at his sides. "Just walk away. _Leave._" Looking up, he met the soldier's eyes and put as much sincerity into his words as he could muster. "Don't make me kill you. Please."

Steve looked at him, hurt and confused but unwavering. "I like you, too, Loki. I don't want either of us to die."

"But you still won't walk away."

Steve shook his head.

"Captain—"

Steve straightened up and tossed his shield onto the ground. Loki felt his throat constrict, his hands beginning to quiver as he told himself he _would _kill Steve if it came down to it. But he didn't do anything, he simply stared at the disk for a moment or two and then slowly lifted his gaze. Steve stood tall and proud, just like he always did, shoulders squared and back straight…

…with both hands above his head.

_No. Don't._

"Go on, then. Prove that there is nothing in you for me to be proud of. Show me that my friend is gone, or that he was never there in the first place." Steve twisted his hands and shrugged, giving the trickster a helpless gesture. "Make me realize what an idiot I am."

Loki stared at the star in the center of the man's chest. If he hit that star, Steve would be dead in seconds. It would be so easy, and without resistance, it wouldn't take much magic, meaning there was a chance Loki could actually survive the ordeal. He could kill Steve and continue his escape. It wouldn't be difficult. He could do it. He _would _do it.

"If I surrender, you'll take my magic."

Steve nodded. "Yes, we will."

Loki swallowed, taking a deep breath and straightening up as much as he possibly could. His fingers brushed against each other, magic jumping beneath the surface, waiting for a signal from him to fly. He could do it. He really could, and he would.

"Why won't you walk away?" Loki whispered, wetting his lips and trying to keep himself calm. "Why won't you just leave?"

"I can't let you wander around alone, especially not with that kind of power." Steve stared him down, unwavering. "You do things when you're alone. Like, for example, unlocking your magic even under twenty-four hour surveillance and three hundred and twenty-five different levels of security."

Loki shook his head, staring down at his hand, fingers blurring as tears started to creep across his vision. "But you trust me not to kill you. Why can't you trust me to leave peacefully?"

"There is a big different between killing a friend and killing a stranger."

Loki jerked, glaring at him as a sudden anger welled in his chest. "I never said you were my friend. I never _asked _you to be my friend. I never asked for any of this."

"Am I wrong?" Steve arched his eyebrows, waiting a few seconds before continuing. "Loki, you don't want this."

"You don't know what I want," he spat, shoulders heaving as he struggled to find oxygen between the backlash and the rage and the fear. "You have no idea."

"Then tell me," Steve replied in earnest. "What do you want?"

Loki stopped, taking a few shaky breathes and trying to find an answer to his question. He knew he had one somewhere in the mess he liked to call his mind, but he hadn't been able to find it in years.

"Loki, what do you want?"

"I don't know." Loki shifted, clenching his teeth and looking down at his glowing hands. "I want my magic. I want freedom. I want a room and not a cell. I want to walk down to the corner and get myself a coffee and not have to ask someone else to do it for me. I want…" He screwed his eyes shut, throat tight with unshed tears. "I don't know." He shook his head. "I don't know."

He knew he didn't want to kill Steve. He would, if he had to, but he didn't want to.

"Loki." Steve lowered his hands to his sides but made no move to retrieve his shield or obtain another weapon. "You are never going to have any of that if you keep running away from the consequences."

Loki choked back an angry sob, one hand tangling through his hair and gripping at the knotted mess with a vengeance. He could leave. He didn't have to kill Steve, he could just knock him out and run. He could search Steve's body to find out how they had tracked him and get rid of whatever tags they had on him. He could take the shield and some weapons from the soldier's belt, just in case anyone tried to follow him.

He could escape. He could leave. He could be free.

He could do it. He _should_ do it.

Knees hit the ground, two pale wrists coming together and moving away from his body, waiting to be shackled, the green glow gone from their surface. Tired eyes stared endlessly at the ground in front of him, tears obstructing his vision and occasionally rolling down his cheeks. His ears picked up the faint sound of Steve's approaching footsteps, fatigue racking his body, his tears hitting the floor in perfect synchronization with the click of the handcuffs.

_I'm the one who can't walk away. Idiot. Stupid, useless idiot._

"Are you hurt?" Steve asked, kneeling down in front of him.

Loki nodded absentmindedly, his brain too distracted by his crushing defeat to offer more.

"Can you tell me where?"

Loki looked down at himself, opened his mouth, and then shut it again. It wasn't worth the time or the effort, especially now. For all he knew, Steve was digging around for weaknesses he could report back to Natasha. Or maybe Steve was just furious with him. Maybe he despised the liar for his backstabbing ways, and he got some sort of vindictive pleasure from hearing all about what ailed him.

_No. The Captain isn't like that._

Steve was a good man. He was a good man, and Loki was tired. He was tired of analyzing every single person that came into his life. He was tired of watching all the damage he had caused and trying to justify it in his own mind. He was tired of being bitter, and hateful, and lonely, and jealous.

"Loki, please talk to me." Steve ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh, frustrated and unsure of how to proceed. "I can't help you if you don't talk to me."

Loki opened his mouth to speak, but he could barely get a whisper out.

"What?" Steve leaned in closer, turning his head to give the god his ear.

"I'm sorry, Steve." Loki lost the end of the sentence to a thick swallow, shoulders slumped, hands resting in his lap completely still. "I'm sorry for everything."

If there had been any fight left in him, it was gone.

Steve stared at him for a moment, and then he offered a smile just as warm and kind and genuine as any other smile the god had seen on his face over the past thirteen months. "I forgive you."

Loki's shoulders jerked, fresh tears flooding his eyes, silent sobs racking his body as he bit down on his tongue.

Steve forgave him. Steve, who had taken every hurled insult and spiteful curse in stride and responded with grace and kindness. Steve, who had visited him in prison when he had absolutely no reason to. Steve, who treated him like he was more than a criminal and a traitor. Steve, who treated him like he wasn't a monster. Steve, who called him a friend even though Loki had only ever caused him pain and lied to his face.

Steve forgave him.

"You shouldn't." Loki shook his head, swallowing thickly. "Not me. You shouldn't."

Steve only smiled more, a brief sadness flashing through his eyes. "Forgiveness is most powerful when it's given to those who don't deserve it."

Loki shook his head again and again, unable to comprehend what was happening, losing his mind to a sea of scrambled thoughts. He didn't say anything, terrified of what might come out of his mouth if he opened it again. He had prepared himself to be hated. He had kept his walls up to protect himself from it. He was so ready for his lies to lead to anger and rage and disgust.

He wasn't ready for forgiveness.

He didn't know what to _do _with forgiveness.

"Loki, we really should go back to the Tower. We have some things we need to discuss." He gave him a weak smile and stood up. "Can you walk?"

Loki nodded sharply and followed suit, getting to his feet and allowing his arm to be grabbed. Steve led him along, and the fallen god used the opportunity to think. He stared at his hands and wondered if he could get away with using a little magic before it was taken away.

_I just got it back. I just got it back, and I'm giving it up. I don't want to. _

Shaking his head, he derailed that train of thought and tried to focus on something else. He sighed softly and began working his way through the chain of events that lead him here, trying to organize all of the details in his head before they returned to the Avenger's Tower.

"How is he?" Loki asked softly, wiping his face on his shoulder to remove any evidence of the recent tears. "Thor, I mean."

"He's stable." Steve wet his lips and cleared his throat, almost as if he wasn't sure how to proceed. "He lost a lot of blood, and he's in a lot of pain, but he'll be alright. Mentally…"

Loki looked away, not wanting to go down that road. "Good to know." He swallowed hard, staring at the dirt and rocks they were walking on, fingers twitching at his hips. "What should I expect?"

Steve let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair and letting his palm rest on his neck when he was done. "I don't know. I really don't. It wasn't exactly textbook."

"Don't sugarcoat it, Captain." Loki glared at the man half-heartedly. "I unlocked my magic and then used it. I don't see how this _isn't _textbook."

Steve shook his head. "I wasn't sugarcoating anything. I don't know how things work on Asgard, but down here, justice isn't always black and white. We have a lot of things to consider."

Loki scoffed, struggling to keep his voice level and devoid of any bitterness. "Like what?"

Steve stopped, turning around to face him fully, and for a moment, Loki thought he had somehow, completely unintentionally, crossed an invisible line and pushed Steve over the edge. But the soldier only gave him an incredulous look and some sort of cross between a snort and incredulous laughter.

"Loki, you _saved _us."

* * *

"Thor, on your left!" Loki picked up the closest thing to him—a rather expensive looking vase he assumed Tony would add to his ever-growing bill—and brought it down on the rogue agent's head. "Your _other_ left."

"Loki, your wit is not appreciated at this time." Thor hit a few more over the head with Mjolnir, holding back in a way Loki didn't know he could and wincing as the bodies dropped limply to the floor. "By the Norns, what sort of attack is this?"

"A desperate one," the god drawled, crouching down and pressing two fingers to the woman's throat. "She's still alive. What about those three?"

Thor knelt on the ground and checked the unconscious agents in turn, nodding his head as he talked. "Yes, they're all fine."

Loki hummed in response, turning his head to look at Steve, who had cornered another one of the ragtag bunch and was trying to talk him down.

"Put the gun down, and let's talk. Look at you, you're shaking. You're terrified." Steve kept his shield up, slowly approaching the young man in the same way one might approach a wild animal. "I don't want to hurt you, and you don't have to fight. If I had to take a guess, I would say you had no idea what you were getting into when you swore your allegiance to H.Y.D.R.A. You're young, you're rebellious, and you like the idea of fighting the power. But this isn't what you signed up for, is it?"

_This is the most pitiful, half-hearted thing I've ever seen._ Loki turned away from the altercation and scanned the demolished living room, quickly finding Tony, Natasha, and Clint standing at the bay window and discussing the activity below.

"It doesn't look like anyone noticed," the redhead murmured, watching the streets for a few more seconds before looking at her teammates. "This was too small and disorganized to be H.Y.D.R.A. It was a suicide mission for agents who felt they had nothing left to lose."

Clint nodded his head slowly. "H.Y.D.R.A. wasted no time in using fear of imprisonment to their advantage. Everyone who is truly dedicated is taken up to the next level, while the rest are sent out on jobs like this."

"So, then, is this a one-time thing or the beginning of a kamikaze killing spree?" Tony stepped away from the window and moved towards one of the seventeen fallen agents around the room. "What if this is a distraction so other groups can go attack civilians?"

Natasha nodded her head slowly. "That would explain the cooling off period. It's been almost seven months since H.Y.D.R.A. revealed themselves. They could have been using this time to make bombs, gather weapons, plan small attacks worldwide…"

Loki abandoned that conversation as well and turned to look at Dr. Banner, who was crouched on the ground by the most severely wounded individual, hands working diligently as he tried to keep the young woman from bleeding out.

_I don't like this. It doesn't feel right._

Loki turned back to Steve and the successfully detained agent, brow furrowing slightly.

_He's too afraid. _

Granted, there was a certain level of fear the boy had every right to experience. This young man had attacked the Avengers and their resident war criminal with a small group that had no chance of success or survival. He had tempted the fates, and while he had managed to stay alive, he was now a prisoner of the people he had betrayed. Loki was familiar with the feeling, and it certainly warranted fear, but not the unadulterated terror he saw on the boy's face.

_He's shaking and sweating. His eyes are darting from place to place. He isn't even hearing what Steve is telling him, when he should be hanging on every word and trying to make an appeal to save himself._

"Thor, take him downstairs and put him in a holding cell." Steve led the young agent to the thunder god and handed him over. "I'm going to help Dr. Banner, and then maybe we can get to work cleaning this place up."

Loki opened his mouth, his concerns dancing on his tongue.

"Certainly." Thor put his hand on the boy's shoulder, and Steve walked away. "Come along, small mortal."

It was like someone had flipped a switch that turned off the fear and replaced it with cold, hateful malice. "Hail H.Y.D.R.A."

Loki got the first syllable of a warning out before the explosion shook the building, and then he was lying flat on his back, staring at a blackened ceiling through a veil of smoke. His ears rang, and the world faded in and out of clarity for several seconds as he tried to regain the bearings he lost in the blast.

"Thor." He said the word, but he couldn't hear his own voice through the cotton in his ears. His entire back hurt, a pain which spread into his lungs every time he inhaled, but still he tried to breathe so that he could actually speak. "Thor?"

_Who else was in close proximity to the bomb?_

"Captain?" Loki dragged himself to his feet and turned in a tight circle, squinting to clear away the blurriness and black splotches. He spotted Thor sprawled out on the ground a few feet away, covered in blood and burns, limp and unmoving. "Thor?"

Coughing, Loki started to walk, swaying every other step as his body tried to realign itself with the world. "Thor. Thor, wake up." He dropped to his knees and grabbed onto the god's shoulders, shaking them and feeling the bloody skin peel beneath his hands. Cursing, he drew them back and looked at the mess of a man before him, trying to figure out how to wake him up.

There were footsteps behind him, and then Tony knelt down by his side, pressing two fingers against his neck. "He's got a pulse, but it's weak. Can Asgardians die from blood loss?"

Loki coughed into the crook of his arm, smoke still filling the air around them. "It's possible but uncommon. Still…" He trailed off and turned his head to scan the room.

Tony pulled on the god's shoulder slightly. "Step back. I'll do a scan."

Loki did as he was told without saying a word, continuing to look around himself. He found Steve, who was crouched on the floor and holding his head, and once he was satisfied that the soldier wasn't going to die, he began to survey the damage.

_It's still not right. Their attack was pitiful. They were weak and pathetic and—young. They were all young, it was an appeal to our emotions. They were chosen because they were most likely to get us to let our guard down. _Loki looked at Tony and opened his mouth to speak.

"Bruce, get away from her, she might be wired." Tony stood up and turned to face the half of the room that had been left mostly undamaged. "Legs and Legolas, do you see anything on your side of things?"

Loki stopped, closing his mouth and considering the possibility. _No, they wouldn't plant more bombs because that's what we expect them to do. There has to be something else. This is a distraction, but for what? He could have killed the Captain, but instead he waited until he was handed off to Thor, who can recover. It wasn't supposed to kill anyone. Something else is coming, something we aren't seeing, something—_

Loki got to his feet and turned in the opposite direction of the window; in the opposite direction of the fallen agents being searched for bombs. He turned in the direction of the elevator, without which they couldn't access their medical equipment and excess weaponry.

It happened in an instant.

Something hit the building, and Loki took a step back and spread his arms, unable to think of anything but stopping the danger at the doorstep. Magic surged to his fingertips, and with another step back, he sent out a warning over his shoulder.

"Get back!"

Then it hit. Loki threw his arms forward as the object—a plane, he realized, or a jet or some sort—came through the wall. Green light flared from his hands, the force of his magic hitting the aircraft head on and bringing it to an abrupt stop.

But momentum was momentum, and while his power stopped the jet in its tracks, the remaining energy had to go somewhere. Rivets popped and metal screamed, shrapnel flying in every direction as the unadulterated force of impact tore through the building. Loki hit the ground, he heard Steve's shield slamming into the wall, and his peripherals showed Natasha shielding Bruce from the onslaught of debris.

_Did it work?_

Loki sat up almost as soon as he hit the ground, struggling to catch his breath, nausea cutting into the pit of his stomach as the exertion began to take its toll. He struggled to get to his feet and staggered forwards before turning around, trying to get a good look at the room and see how far it had gotten.

He was met with five different expressions.

Natasha had a brow raised, like she was waiting for him to get the punch line of a joke. Barton looked irritated in a very specific way that said he had seen this coming a mile away and everyone could apologize now, thank you. Tony stared with wide eyes, and Dr. Banner did the same, but there was a hint of disappointment in his.

"Loki?" Steve stared at him like someone had just stabbed him in the gut, mouth slightly open and eyes filled with confusion and hurt. It was this pained, wounded, _betrayed _expression that triggered Loki's epiphany.

_They know._

It was Loki's turn to stare with wide eyes, and he imagined the shock on his own face rivalled that which he saw on theirs. He took a step back and then another, his gaze shifting between his bloody hands and the dumbstruck faces around the room. He hadn't meant to do that. He hadn't meant to reveal his magic yet. He wasn't ready to leave.

_What do I do?_

Loki looked to Dr. Banner instinctively, silently cursing himself for the fact that he had come to rely on the man for advice in times of trouble. Then he looked down at his hands again, bringing his fingers together and swallowing the bitter fact that he had no choice. He messed up, and now he had no choice.

"Loki… when did you…?"

They knew, and if he stayed, he would lose his magic again. They would send him back to Asgard in chains to be locked in the dungeon, where he would never again see the light of day, and there would be no more second chances.

_I had to. For everyone's sake. I had_ _to._

With that thought in the forefront of his mind, hoping against hope that it would be enough to keep them from following, pleading with the fates to just _let him go, _he snapped his fingers.

There was a plume of emerald smoke, and Loki was gone.


	25. Chapter 25

"We can't just re-seal it and pretend none of this ever happened."

"What do you suggest we do, then? If three hundred and twenty-five layers of state of the art security weren't enough to catch him in the act, nothing will."

"That's exactly my point. If we don't know how he un-sealed it and what to look for, we can't stop him from doing it again."

Clint listened to the conversation in silence, keeping his arms crossed and his expression blank. He leaned against the wall, examining every member of the team and their body language in turn. He knew what he wanted to say, but he was waiting for the right moment. He was waiting for a cue, and his audience wasn't being very cooperative.

"I… I understand if you want me to return him to Asgard." Thor stared at the floor, running his fingers lightly along the edge of his slowly healing burn marks. "Asgardians can monitor his magic in ways we cannot. They will be able to keep him contained until he is taken to face his punishment."

Tony shook his head immediately. "No, we can't do that."

"Why not?" Natasha arched an eyebrow. "If we can't contain him, he could become a threat. If anything sets him off, angers him, or even _scares _him, he could take out the block, and we have no way of stopping him."

"We are not sending a man away to be tortured," the inventor shot back.

"I hate to tell you this, Stark, but every government in the world has and will again, at some point, send someone away to be tortured."

Tony braced his hands against the table and leaned forwards, his normal nonchalance completely absent as he stared the spider down. "Your point? I don't care how many people do it, it isn't _right._"

"And putting thousands of people in danger to protect your conscience is?" Natasha, ever calm and level-headed, paused before continuing in a slightly softer tone. "I don't like it either, Tony, but what else are we supposed to do? We obviously can't contain him or outsmart him. He's proven himself in a lot of ways, but not enough to be trusted with that kind of power. He would have free reign of this planet, and there would be nothing to keep him here or to keep him attending sessions with Bruce."

Clint turned his head at this, directing his attention to the doctor sitting at the other end of the table. Bruce was staring down at his lap, trying to keep his eyes brown and his breathing even. Given everything that had happened, Clint was amazed that he had managed to keep himself under control this long, but they couldn't exactly exclude him from the discussion.

"You don't know he would hurt anyone," Tony snapped.

"You don't know he wouldn't," Natasha replied coolly.

"He would." Bruce spoke softly, not looking up from his lap and breathing deeply between phrases. "He's too volatile right now. He's confused, and conflicted, and angry, and scared. Even if he doesn't want to, and even if he tries not to, he's going to lash out eventually. Someone will get hurt when he does."

Tony started to object, but he didn't get very far. "Bruce—"

"Dr. Banner speaks the truth." Thor swallowed thickly, still staring down at his feet. "I do believe that this arrangement has helped Loki greatly, but it has also exposed parts of himself that he buried long ago. I do not want him to return to Asgard, but I do not want him to react in self-defense and take things too far."

"Exactly." Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, frowning as though she were conflicted, though her words said otherwise. "He protected us with his magic, but he obviously didn't mean to do it. It was instinctual. Loki is jumpy and distrustful. What happens if his instincts misinterpret something, and he reacts without thinking?"

"So, what, we're just gonna abandon him?" Tony looked at the three in turn, running both hands through his hair. "Can't we just—I don't know, get someone from Asgard to give us that magic-detecting technology?"

"I don't think we should take his magic."

Clint turned his head to look at Steve, a faintest of smiles pulling at the corner of his mouth. Everyone else just stared, silence settling over the room as everyone, even Tony, waited to hear what their leader had to say.

"Not all of it, anyway." Steve cleared his throat, putting his hands on his hips and feigning a calm demeanor to hide his uncertainty. "I know I've had trouble being professional about this situation from day one, but hear me out."

They did, and Clint knew the cue he had been waiting for was just around the corner.

"When I found Loki, I gave him a chance to escape."

"You _what?" _

"I said hear me out," the soldier snapped, glaring in Tony's direction. "I threw my shield on the ground and put my hands up. I invited him to kill me. He didn't, but the first words out of his mouth were, 'If I surrender, you'll take my magic.' I asked him what he wanted, and the first thing he said was magic; freedom came second." Steve looked around the room, and Clint could only imagine how torn the man felt. "I understand that we can't let him have all of his magic, and I agree completely. But I… I don't think escape was his focus, I think he just really wants his magic back."

And there it was.

"False." Clint stepped away from the wall and approached the team. "I didn't want to say anything, because I know not everyone is as good at compartmentalization as Natasha and myself, but Loki has been unlocking his magic for several months."

Tony threw his hands up and shouted. "Is there anything _else _I should know before we end this meeting? Please, tell me there isn't a world domination plot I don't know about."

Clint ignored him. "Back in December, before the H.Y.D.R.A. attack, I realized Loki found a way out. I didn't know how, but I knew he had a plan in motion. I told Natasha about my suspicions, but I wanted the rest of you to keep acting normal around him."

"Barton, you should have told me." Thor stood up, that old familiar rage lighting his eyes. "I could have prevented this. I could have taken him to Asgard—"

"Keep your pants on, Thor. I'm not done." Clint shrugged his shoulders. "I watched Loki like a hawk, pun fully intended, in the months after my discovery, and I saw Loki starting to trust you. It was slow going, but it _was_ going. I hoped Loki would change his tune by the time he got everything he needed in order to escape, and I was right."

Clint turned to his left, meeting Steve's gaze. "Escape _was _Loki's focus, but it isn't anymore. Right now, in this moment, magic is more important to Loki than escape. I don't think it was when he started, maybe it wasn't a month or even a week ago, but it is now."

Clint fell silent for a moment, looking around the room and spreading his arms in a gesture of helplessness. "I trust Loki the least of all of you. You know what he did to me, and you know what I'd like to do to him. But we said we were going to rehabilitate him, and we knew we were taking a risk when we did that. If we're really going to do this, we need to do it right, and we need to go all the way. We can't back out because he threw us a curveball."

For several moments, no one said anything, which he was fine with. After all, it was a lot to process, and it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of everything they had been talking about.

Natasha sighed. "We can't let him keep his magic. He's too powerful."

"I agree." Clint nodded his head. "I said we need to go all the way. If we start thinking about this like rehab instead of battle strategies, I think the answer is pretty clear."

Tony caught on immediately and reinserted himself into the conversation, that familiar spark of ingenuity shining in his eyes. "We take him back to Asgard, and we have them lock every seal but one."

Bruce began to understand with that statement, snapping his fingers and pointing towards the archer and his science buddy in turn. "We would be rewarding his good behavior and punishing his bad behavior at the same time. It would show him that we're fair, and that we're not in it for ourselves."

Natasha rubbed her chin. "We could observe how he reacts in different situations, but if those instincts take over, he won't be able to do very much damage."

Thor started to nod, a smile gracing his face for the first time in hours. "If one seal is unlocked, he could use his magic to unlock the others, but if he doesn't then we'll know he's sincere."

Clint actually allowed himself to smile along, his expression half incredulous and half congratulatory. "Loki surrendered believing he was going to be stripped of all magic. I don't know how you all did it, but Loki wants to be here. He doesn't want you to hate him more than he wants his magic or his freedom."

Steve smiled widely, his entire body emanating relief. "We could take him to Asgard every three months to make sure none of the other seals are being tampered with. We could let him incorporate magic into his street work. We can encourage it without putting anyone in harm's way, including Loki."

Clint shrugged his shoulders. "What can I say? I'm awesome. You're all welcome for the great idea, which, by the way, was not thought of by any of the geniuses in the room." He turned around and started to walk away from the meeting table. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drink an entire pot of coffee and not talk for several days."

_I just helped Loki, of all people, get a second chance to live on Earth, inside Avengers Tower with the rest of us._

He sighed heavily and shook his head, rubbing his face with his hands.

_Do me a favor, Loki, and don't screw this up. Deal?_

* * *

Loki fidgeted with his hands, staring down at the shackles with tired eyes and trying to pretend he couldn't feel the world shifting and rocking beneath his unsteady feet. He hadn't slept at all the previous night, choosing instead to cast small illusions and create pointless trinkets and charms for hours on end. He didn't regret it, though, even if it was taking its toll. He wanted to do anything he could to enjoy his magic before it was gone, so long as he didn't use too much energy and hurt himself further.

"Are they too tight?"

Loki glanced up, meeting a pair of worried blue eyes and shaking his head slightly. "They're fine." He doubted he would have noticed even if they weren't.

Thor gave him a quick nod and then squared his shoulders, rocking on his heels and looking out towards the Hudson River. "It is a nice day."

Loki arched a brow but took a look at the sky and nodded in response. "Yes. There isn't a cloud in sight." But there would probably be some disturbance after the Bifrost struck the tower. "Your friends take quite a while to get ready."

Thor looked at him for a moment, pain registering on his expression for half of a second before being replaced with a tight-lipped smile. "Yes, they do."

"Hey, don't be talking about me behind my back." Tony approached the duo, fully suited and holding the Iron Man helmet in his hands. "I can't believe I have to wear this thing all day. You owe me."

Thor chuckled. "I apologize, but my people value a warrior's strength above all else. It is best for everyone if we—well, if you arrive as heroes of Midgard and not humans of Midgard."

"That's species-ist."

Thor gave him a befuddled look, but he had no chance to inquire further. Natasha and Clint came out, followed shortly by Dr. Banner, who was the only one still wearing civilian clothing for obvious reasons.

Bruce came to a stop next to the group and tossed Loki a quick but sympathetic smile before looking around and frowning. "Where's Steve?"

"Probably still doing his hair." Tony shrugged his shoulders.

Clint snorted. "We're not talking about you, Tony, you're already here."

Loki smiled before he could stop himself, quickly turning his head to hide the expression. He couldn't begin to imagine how angry they were, especially if they were coming along to watch him be sentenced, and he assumed they didn't want him laughing at their jokes.

"Sorry!" Steve came flying through the door with a duffle bag slung over his shoulders. "I wanted to get some stuff for the trip. We can go now." He stepped into the implied circle and gave Loki a smile.

Loki returned it briefly. _At least I didn't demolish _every _bond of trust I created here. _Still, two of the six Avengers was not enough to save his skin, and no matter how they _felt, _they had to do what was best for their planet.

"We are ready, then?" Thor looked around and then held Mjolnir skyward. "Heimdall!"

There was a moment of silence, and then they were enveloped in a shower of bright lights and colors. Loki felt the ground disappear beneath his feet and braced himself for the moment it would return, hoping he could actually stay upright this time around.

_I can't appear weak in front of them. Not here. Not now._

Both feet hit the ground hard, the handcuffs digging into his wrists as he tried to use his arms to steady himself, but he remained standing. Looking around, he found some of the others had not been so lucky.

Clint and Natasha were both pulling themselves to their feet, and Loki was certain the only reason Tony was still standing was because of his suit. It made sense, seeing as they were the only three who had never travelled through the Bifrost before. Steve and Bruce had grown accustomed to the travel method during Loki's imprisonment on Jotunheim, so it was easy for them to catch themselves.

"Is everyone alright?" Steve asked, looking around to confirm that they were before he turned to address the looming gatekeeper. "You must be Heimdall. Thor has told us a lot about you. I'm Steve, and this is—"

"I know who you are." Heimdall's spoke evenly, his expression blank and unreadable. "I know who all of you are. King Odin is waiting for you."

Steve was caught off-guard by the interruption, but he nodded and accepted the cold shoulder with grace, just as he always did. "I see. Thank you, Heimdall. We appreciate your help."

Thor took the lead then, walking around the center of the room and making a beeline for the exit. "This way, my friends. It is quite a walk to the palace, and there is no need to delay."

Loki rolled his eyes, knowing Thor had forgotten one very important detail.

The Avengers had never set foot in Asgard before.

"Wow. Just… wow. Woah."

"It's literally a waterfall into nothingness."

"I think the entire city is made of gold…"

"What are we standing on? It can't really be a rainbow, right?"

"I'm going to fly over the waterfall and see what's down there."

Thor turned around at that. "You will do no such thing, Man of Iron." He shook his head, motioning for everyone to follow him. "I will take you to see the sights later. Right now, we have important business to attend to."

"You sound like Pepper." Tony hesitated but eventually started walking after the thunder god, followed closely by the rest of the Avengers. "But I seriously am going to fly over the edge and see what's down there."

Thor only shook his head, but Loki saw the smile on his face. Had he thought it appropriate, he would have commented, but the last thing he wanted to do in this situation was step on any toes.

_Although, I don't suppose I could make the situation worse than it already is._

Still, the Avengers had surprised him on more than one occasion. If he had any chance for mercy or lenience in all of the Nine Realms, it was with them and them alone. He didn't want to lose his only advantage.

Rubbing his palm with his thumb, he started to delve deeper into his thoughts, trying to ignore the slowly approaching palace. He wished now more than ever that he had pressed Thor for details on his original sentence. He had no idea what he was walking into, other than the fact that he wouldn't have his magic when he came out on the other side, and it terrified him more than anything else that laid beyond the golden doors.

_Obviously, it has to be torture of some sort. It wouldn't be considered worse than death otherwise, but that doesn't exactly tell me what kind of torture it is. _

Then again, maybe it was better that he didn't know. Maybe it was better to panic about a million vague things than one specific thing in particular.

_He could turn me into a slave. It wouldn't be unheard of for traitors to be stripped of their freedom in more ways than one. Of course, there's physical torture, and if he returns my immortality to me, that prospect becomes much more… eternal. Then there's mental torture—he could use his magic for that—emotional torture, which I suppose he could also use magic for, or there's… sexual torture. _But surely Odin wouldn't go that far. There were other ways Loki could be punished without debasing and violating him to that extent.

…right?

_Stop. Stop thinking about it. You don't know what's waiting for you, and there is no point in worrying about it until you know what you have to worry about. Just. Stop._

Taking a deep breath, he tuned into the conversations around him, trying to focus on their bewildered curiosity instead of his own, rapidly darkening thoughts.

"Tony, I think they like your suit."

Grinning, the millionaire spread his plated arms. "Well, it's probably the fanciest armor they've ever seen in their entire lives. I mean, look at me." Tony gestured to himself, ignoring Steve's irritated expression and throwing a quick wave in the direction of the civilians.

Clint jerked his thumb in the general direction of the onlookers. "Okay, so when I see a kid that looks ten or eleven, how old are they actually?"

Steve raised a finger at that. "If my math is correct, I think they would be around five hundred years old."

Loki opened his mouth to correct the man but immediately closed it, looking the other way.

"Loki, were you going to say something?"

_Steve, be quiet. You are not helping. _Wetting his lips, the dethroned prince turned his head to look at the group and offered a quick smile. "I was only going to explain that they are actually closer to three hundred and fifty years of age. Your math was correct, however, if we aged that slowly, it would take roughly two hundred and fifty to three hundred years for us to be able to take care of ourselves. Children age fairly rapidly when they are young, with every twenty human years equaling one of our years. When they hit one hundred human years, or age five for us, then they slow down to fifty year increments."

Steve nodded his head slowly. "I think I follow you. So, how many human years does Thor have on you?"

Loki wet his lips and glanced over his shoulder, wondering if the other Avengers were paying attention and what their body language might tell him. "Thor is thirty-one years older than myself."

"That's messed up," Tony muttered. "How do you keep track of all that?"

"Well, I don't normally have to make conversions. You know what is expected of a human at age one, and I know what is expected of an Asgardian at age twenty. I never thought about the human equivalents before…" He almost kept going, but decided to cut the sentence short, not liking the attention he was receiving.

_I'm missing something. There's something none of them are saying._

Loki turned back around and focused on the path ahead, the palace gates rising slowly in the distance. Small, simple houses faded away into spacious streets and luxurious two-story buildings as the lower class was left behind. Unfortunately, the upper class was much smaller than the class before it, and it wasn't long before they were standing next to two solid walls of gold set on hinges.

_Here we go. _Loki instinctively took a step in Thor's direction, though he tried to cover it up by shifting his weight back and forth as if his feet were growing tired. _No point in panicking now._

Thor spoke with the guard briefly, getting him to open up the gates. "We're here to speak with the Allfather."

_The Allfather? Why not call him Father? _Loki frowned, his eyes narrowing slightly. _Come to think of it, why didn't he greet Heimdall when we arrived?_

There was no time to ponder his quandaries, however, for at that moment, the gates swung inward and they were granted entrance into the courtyard. Thor strode ahead, walking with increased urgency while the five heroes and their prisoner trailed behind. One staircase, and then another, and then another, all three of them made entirely out of marble. Then came the doors and a long, rich hallway with roughly half of a mile of scarlet carpet to walk on.

"Who _designed _this thing?" Clint groaned, thoroughly disgusted with the amount of walking he was being made to do.

Thor only laughed, though it lacked its usual mirth, and kept on walking until he reached the doors, throwing them open and leading the entourage into the throne room. Frigga and Odin sat on their respective chairs, waiting in silence, and Loki allowed himself one last, nervous swallow before he steeled himself.

_No matter what happens, stay in control._

Thor came to a stop and dropped to one knee, the Avengers following his example and lining up on the ground. Loki knelt between Thor and Steve, knowing it was the safest possible place he could be in that moment, regardless of whether or not he wanted to admit it.

Odin gestured with his hand, bringing his open palm upwards and then resting it on the arm of his throne. Thor and Loki got to their feet, the others following their example and rising one by one until they stood, their little band of seven, in front of the King and Queen of the Nine Realms.

Odin spoke first, his tone making it very clear that this was not a meeting to be taken lightly. "You have come to discuss the sentence of Loki Laufeyson."

For the first time in his life, Loki didn't cringe when he heard his birth name, and while he didn't know how he felt about that, he hoped Odin noticed. He hoped it burned the king to know he didn't care anymore.

Thor nodded his head. "Yes, we have."

"Then say what you have come to say."

Thor turned and looked at Steve, who nodded and stepped forward.

_What is he doing? _Loki frowned at the soldier, and then turned to give the same look to his brother. _What are you doing?_

Steve stood with his shoulders squared and his hands clasped behind his back, unwavering and confident, as always. "My name is Steve Rogers, Captain America. I've overseen Loki's imprisonment and treatment from the first day of his sentence up until now, and I have come along with my team to inform you that Loki has unsealed his magic and to ask you to remedy this."

Loki put a small smirk on his face, a sort of reminiscence lighting his eyes as if he were recalling a pleasant memory. He had no idea what the Avengers were doing, but he knew he would need to keep himself guarded from this point forward. _Better hold off on the snide comments until I have a better opening. _But he didn't let the fake smile falter. If he had had any hope of mercy before, it died the minute they started sabotaging themselves.

Not that Steve wasn't a good negotiator, but they were on Asgard. Thor would obviously have the most political pull and the best chance of actually being heard. If they put someone else up front, then they were giving up.

Not that Loki blamed them.

Odin inhaled deeply, almost as if a sigh were soon to follow, but then stopped himself. "You are returning Loki to Asgard, then."

"No, sir." Steve shook his head.

Loki's brow twitched, and he turned his head to look at the other Avengers, trying to get a read on the situation. They all seemed completely serious and professional, but Loki couldn't see any way that this could go well. Odin may not have been as crafty as the master of mischief, but he wasn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination.

_Well… what have I got to lose? _

Loki swallowed. He swallowed his walls, and his masks, and his quips, and his cynicism. He swallowed everything he thought he knew about the situation, every outcome he had predicted, and he leaned forward enough to see Dr. Banner on the other end of the line. Then, keeping his chains in mind, he did what came naturally without allowing himself to think about it. He turned his hands so they were palm up and gave the scientist a face that quite plainly asked, 'Who told you this was a good idea?'

Bruce only smiled at him, throwing a wink across the room.

"You do not understand how magic works." Odin's face was as impassive as ever, a hint of disdain creeping into his features. "You cannot observe it as we can."

Steve nodded his head, meeting the king's countenance with a stony mask of his own, seemingly unintimidated by the man sitting on the throne. "I know that, sir. That is why we'd like to bring Loki to Asgard every three months to ensure that the seals haven't been tampered with."

Loki raised his hands a little higher and turned towards the soldier, despite the fact that he was standing behind the man, his expression becoming more evident as the lines in his brow deepened. 'Who told you _this _was a _good _idea?'

"What would be the purpose of that?" the Allfather questioned.

Steve replied without missing a beat. "We want Loki to remain in our custody. We believe the rehabilitation is working, and with your assistance, we would like to keep heading down this road."

"Then you are a fool." Odin's tone hardened, his volume slowly increasing and sending his words bouncing from wall to wall in the large, empty chamber. "Your methods have obviously failed, and if we send him back to you as he was when this began, the cycle will only repeat itself."

Steve didn't even flinch. "We know. That's why we aren't asking you to do that."

Loki turned back towards the rest of the Avengers, raising his hands just a little bit higher and silently screaming at them for not stepping in and doing something to stop the absolute train wreck that was unfolding before them. _'Who told you this was a good idea?'_

"Loki Laufeyson, do you have something to say?"

Loki's blood froze in his veins.

_Odin. Odin can't be trusted. Odin is not an Avenger. Odin is an enemy. I can't show him what I'm thinking. I can't._

All of Loki's default settings returned, and he turned back towards the throne with a sardonic smile, his voice adapting a tone that was thick with patronization. "Only trying to amuse myself while two old men exchange words that make about as much sense as the ramblings of a lunatic."

Steve looked over his shoulder. "Loki, stop. This isn't the time or the place."

Loki arched an eyebrow, not losing the tone or expression of arrogance and hoping he would have a chance to explain himself later. "What exactly would be the appropriate time and place, Captain?"

Steve opened his mouth to respond but was cut off before he had the chance.

"Sorry, Your Illustriousness." Tony crossed the room with his typical swagger and let one hand fall on Loki's shoulder, giving the joint a squeeze. "Reindeer Games is a bit confused. We didn't tell him about our plan—sort of like a test to help us determine whether or not we really want to go through with this."

Loki couldn't even tell the inventor off for the physical contact and nicknames. He simply looked between Tony and Steve multiple times before turning to look at Thor, mouthing one of the many, many questions flying through his brain. "What is going on?"

Thor held up a finger and smiled, mouthing an equally silent response. "Patience."

Steve, who had never once allowed himself to stop looking like the stone-cold general he wanted the king to believe he was, cleared his throat. "If everyone is done chatting, I'd like to continue."

"Sorry, Cap."

Loki couldn't have gotten an apology out even if he wanted to. He was too busy trying to figure out what he should consider important and who he should pay attention to. Bruce's winking? Steve's coldness? Tony's humor? Odin? Thor? Barton? Frigga? Natasha?

_I don't know what to do._

"We are here today," Steve began, "to request that you replace six of the seven seals guarding Loki's magic, and that you would permit one or more of us to bring Loki to Asgard every three months to evaluate the status of the other seals."

_What? _Loki could not process anything other than that one word.

"Magic does not work that way." Odin shook his head, growing more impatient with the mortals' lacking knowledge. "If you unlock one, you enable him to unlock them all."

_What? _Loki's heart pounded in his chest, his head throbbing in perfect sync. _What?_

"We know." Steve once again replied without missing a beat, acting as though the king wasn't talking to him like he was an idiot. "Loki has shown a lot of improvement, and even with this recent unlocking and use of his magic, he chose to use that power to save us from a fatal attack. We let Loki believe he was going to have all of his magic resealed, and that is what he believed up until the moment I said otherwise to you, here, today. But Loki didn't escape. He didn't even try. We want to give him the chance to prove that he can be trusted with his magic, and the only way we feel we can do this safely is to give him a little bit at a time and keep a very close eye on it."

_What? _Gone were the thoughts of his masks and his defenses; the ideas of how he was supposed to act in front of Odin in order to keep himself safe. _What? _He couldn't begin to fathom how they had formulated such a ludicrous idea. _What? _He couldn't begin to imagine why they would make such a plan.

Loki swallowed hard and dropped his gaze to the floor, inhaling slowly. His throat was dry, his muscles had turned to stone, and he wasn't sure if his hands were shaking or if he was just slowly losing his grip on reality and all of the stable sensations that came with it.

_Why?_

He didn't understand. He didn't understand how this could be their plan, their course of action. He didn't understand how they could stand before Odin Allfather, King of the Nine Realms, and make this request on his behalf. He didn't understand what he had done to deserve this much thought and effort and _care _from them. He just didn't understand.

Tony leaned in close and whispered, "You okay?"

Loki didn't move. "Why are you doing this?"

Tony squeezed his shoulder again, chuckling under his breath. "You crack me up, Reindeer Games. You didn't think we'd just forget the past year, did you?"

That was exactly what Loki thought they were going to do. He thought as soon as it sank in that he had been lying to them, that he had acted against their will behind their back, that he had betrayed their trust, they would consider everything he ever said or did to be false. He thought, in that moment, back at the tower when the jet hit the building, that he had given up every good thing he had gained over the past thirteen months.

He thought it was _over._

"You're not off the hook, of course. We're gonna be keeping a close eye on you for quite some time." Tony poked him in the side and gave him one of those charming, million-dollar smiles he was so famous for. "But we aren't giving up on you."

Loki just stood there. He stood there, and he stared at the floor, and he tried to process even one tiny little bit of information he had just received. It proved to be almost impossible, but as the debate between Steve and Odin began to escalate, he found he could salvage at least one thought from the mess that the past forty-eight hours had made of his brain.

_It's going to be okay._

No matter what happened, it was going to be okay.

The Avengers would make sure of that.

* * *

Thor looked out over the sparkling city and let out a quiet sigh, worry knotting in the pit of his stomach as another minute passed him by. _What is taking them so long?_

"Hey, Zeus, why don't you take off your cape and stay a while?"

Thor turned around and gave Tony a half-irritated, half-confused glare. "I do not understand your words, but I sense they were spoken in jest. I have not the heart for jesting, Man of Iron."

Tony left the uppermost flight of stairs and approached the god where he stood, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Thor, we all decided that leaving Loki here isn't an option, right?"

Thor gave him a stiff nod. Once they heard Clint's plan and started to talk about the ways they could implement it, they had come to the unanimous conclusion that they wouldn't—they couldn't—allow Loki to be tortured for the sake of convenience.

"Right." Tony nodded, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Steve is in there negotiating on Loki's behalf, and you know Steve. He's not going to give up no matter what happens. He doesn't know _how _to give up. It's not in his DNA."

Thor didn't say anything, staring down at the steps and the paths beyond, brow furrowed and eyes darkened with the thick haze of doubt and anxiety.

"Come on, buddy. Steve doesn't know how to give up, right?" Tony nudged him in the arm again. "Right? Right?"

Allowing a smile to part his lips, the thunderer began to nod his head. "Right. Right."

Tony grinned then, turning around and walking back towards the stairs where the rest of the group was seated. "Come on. I think there's someone else who needs to see that smile."

"Man of Iron—" Stopping short, Thor let out a heavy sigh and trailed after the inventor, knowing there was little point in arguing.

Tony reclaimed his seat on the steps and folded his hands behind his head, smirking triumphantly. "Look who stopped staring melodramatically into the middle distance."

Thor gave them a weak smile. "How are you all faring?"

Natasha and Loki shrugged, Bruce gave him a smile, and Clint groaned loudly.

"I'm starving," the archer whined, sprawled out on his back and staring up at the limitless, blue expanse. "When do we get to eat lunch?"

Loki shook his head and picked at his sleeve, still somewhat disoriented from the events in the throne room. "Asgardians don't have lunch. I had no idea what it was until Steve explained it to me."

Clint groaned again. "I need food. Thor, make food happen."

Thor laughed, and it actually sounded somewhat genuine, even if he didn't feel it. "Fear not, Barton. There is plenty of food in the palace kitchens. I'm sure I can find something for you."

"Here," Bruce said, pushing Steve's duffel bag in the direction of the hungry archer. "Steve brought along some snacks."

"Sweet." Clint took the bag and unzipped it, immediately removing a box of cookies and tearing it open. "These are mine."

Natasha leaned towards the bag. "What else is in there?"

"Apples, oranges, bananas, granola bars, brownies—what? Fruit Roll-Ups?" Clint reached in and grabbed two, sliding away from the bag. "These are also mine."

Natasha rolled her eyes and grabbed one for herself, chuckling to herself. "Hey, Loki, there's some water in here. Make sure you don't forget to drink a bottle or two."

"You're hilarious," the god deadpanned.

Thor laughed aloud, planting his hands on his hips. "Come now, Loki, be a good sport. Natasha only wants to ensure you don't fa—"

Everyone startled, all attention turning to the Bifrost as the sporadic, flashing lights signaled its use. It lasted no more than five seconds, but its affect was not so easily shaken off.

"Who would be coming to Asgard?" Bruce asked, slowly standing up and squinting into the distance.

"I… I do not know." Thor instinctively reached back to ensure that Mjolnir was on his belt, moving back down the stairs towards the stretch of flat marble he had been standing on before.

Footsteps sounded behind him a moment later, Loki's voice falling on his ears. "Does anyone else know about my being here? Did you send a message to Odin and Frigga before we left?"

Thor shook his head. "I didn't tell anyone, I didn't send anything. I… suppose it's possible that news of the negotiations have gotten out." He turned back towards his team. "How long have they been in the meeting hall?"

Natasha looked up from where she sat. "It's been almost four hours." Then, after a pause, she added, "How does news even travel between realms?"

"They probably have some sort of intergalactic newspaper. Or maybe their shiny helmets are actually antennae, and they pick up radio stations with them." Clint stuck one end of his fruit snack into his mouth and started pulling on the paper. "Som'ing like 'at."

Loki lowered his forehead into his hand. "Yes, Barton, that's exactly what it is."

Thor kept his hand on his weapon but tried to force a relaxed smile onto his face. "Friends, please focus. If this visitor turns out to be a foe, we need to be prepared to either fight or retreat, and we have no plan laid out for either situation."

Clint sat up at that, throwing his quiver back over his shoulder and fastening it there. "I've got my arrows. I'm ready for anything."

Natasha shrugged her shoulders. "I always have what I need."

"Do I need to answer?" Tony asked, spreading his arms and gesturing to himself. "Or did I not complain enough about having to wear this today?"

Thor cracked a small smile and looked at Bruce and Loki. "What have you, my friends?"

Bruce wet his lip. "I… would normally offer to help, you know that, but… I don't think I can this time." He looked down at his feet, swallowing. "Sorry. I… I'm not ready yet."

Thor only nodded, his face painted with sympathy and understanding. He knew the attack on Canada had impacted the doctor in many ways, and even though Bruce was no longer hold up in his room, there were still days when he would stare off into the distance with a look on his face that just… wasn't right.

"Do not apologize, Dr. Banner. I understand." Thor turned his head and glanced over his shoulder, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, so he turned back. "Loki?"

Shaking his head, the younger god offered a similar answer. "I can't use much magic. This body is not acclimated to it. When I stopped the jet and… ran… I dealt a rather large blow to my health. I don't know how much more this mortal form can take."

Thor nodded his head. "I see. It may be better to retreat, then."

"Thor, I think you need to calm down." Bruce gestured in the general direction of the Bifrost. "We don't even know whether or not the visitor is a threat. I know you're nervous, but I don't think we should be jumping to conclusions just yet."

Thor's immediate reaction was to yell at the other and assert the fact that he was _not _nervous or jumping to conclusions, but then he stopped. Loki wasn't the only one who had changed over the past year, and Thor didn't want to lose his ongoing battle with his temper, no matter how tempting it was.

"I… you may be right, Dr. Banner. Perhaps I did… overreact a bit."

"Okay." Tony hooked his arm around Thor's neck and leaned down. "I have an idea." He glanced around and lowered his voice, as if he were about to share an important secret with his trusted teammates. "It's a bit crazy, but I think it can work if we do it right. My plan is that we... just go see who it is."

Thor shoved the inventor off of his shoulder. "Man of Iron, I told you I was not in the mood for jesting!"

"I'm serious, Point Break." Tony spread his arms. "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

Loki snorted. "Would you like that list alphabetically or in order of severity?"

"Now, is that any way to talk about your mother?"

Thor whirled on the spot, his heart leaping into his throat as he came face to face with the reigning Queen of Jotunheim. _She's here to take Loki away. _That was his first thought, but he kept it to himself, grinding out as civil of a question as he could. "Queen Leiknyrr, what brings you to Asgard?"

Red eyes glimmered in the sunshine, mischief and trickery dancing their way across her face. "I heard Loki was in a bit of a bind, so I came to see what I could do to help."

Thor turned to look over his shoulder, meeting Loki's eyes and silently asking him what to do. Loki stared back for a moment, not saying anything, but Thor could tell by the look on his face that he didn't want the thunderer to interfere.

"Queen Leiknyrr, it is good to see you again." Loki greeted her after a moment, bowing slightly. "If I might ask, what exactly are you planning to do to help me?"

She arched a brow at the two princes in turn, crossing her arms over her chest and letting out a sigh. "I told you before, Loki. You and I understand magic in a way Odin Allfather never can. He doesn't fully understand the gravity of the situation, and I would like to remedy that, if possible."

Thor almost reacted to her words, instinctively wanting to shout out a demand for respect on his father's behalf because he was more of a person than she could ever hope to be. Then he remembered that he was mad at his father, that he was no longer honor bound to Asgard, and that he wasn't supposed to be thinking about Jotuns that way.

"It doesn't happen overnight, Odinson."

Leiknyrr's voice pulled the thunderer out of his thoughts, his tongue refusing to work as he sought some way to explain himself. "I… uh…"

"You wear your heart on your sleeve." Leiknyrr lowered her arms to her sides, her translucent sapphire cloak fluttering slightly in the breeze. "You are very unlike your father in that respect."

Thor wet his lips, embarrassed, and bowed at the waist. "I apologize, Queen Leiknyrr."

"Don't. Just keep trying to fix it." She offered him a brief smile, something he didn't think she had ever directed at him before. "Changing your mind is a lot easier than changing your heart. You can know something factually and logically, but convincing your feelings and thoughts of its truth is not so simple. Give yourself time."

Thor didn't quite know what to say to that. Her kindness and grace in the face of his inability to conceal his blatantly racist thoughts made him feel worse, especially given the fact that Loki was standing right next to him.

_I don't want to be like that. I want to be better than that._

Leiknyrr waved her hands at the two young men, effectively getting both of them to step aside, and then she proceeded to walk up the steps, full of the same regal elegance Thor had always admired in his own mother.

"Hello, Queen Leiknyrr." Bruce smiled, giving her a brief and somewhat timid wave. "I don't know if you remember me, but—"

"Of course I remember you. You are Bruce Banner, the Gentle Green Giant." Leiknyrr then looked around at the rest of the group. "Those of you I have not met but have heard about would be… Anthony Stark, the Man of Iron, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, and Clint Barton, the man with the Hawk's Eyes. Have I named you all correctly?"

There were smiles and nods around the semicircle and, seeming rather satisfied with herself, Leiknyrr continued up the large staircase. "I suspect I will be seeing all of you again, but there are matters I must deal with first."

Thor watched her leave, waiting until the edges of her cape disappeared into the hallway to turn and look at his brother. "Loki…?"

Loki gave Thor a tight-lipped smile. "Just enjoying all of these lovely, earth-shattering surprises. Tell me, do you plan these events, or do they just happen?"

Thor smiled and then allowed himself to laugh, and he was quickly joined by the other members of his team, though he suspected they were laughing for different reasons. Loki's quips were funny, to be sure, but Thor was laughing because he was too overcome with happiness to do anything else.

_It's going to be okay._

No matter what happened, it was going to be okay.

No matter what happened, it was going to be worth it.

No matter what happened, everything he had sacrificed to get to that moment, everything he had given up to keep Loki at his side, every endless night he had spent staring at the ceiling wondering whether or not he was throwing his life away.

It was all going to be worth it. It was all going to be okay.

No matter what.

* * *

"You are absolutely certain I can take these things back to Midgard with me?" Loki arched a brow, looking between the spell books in his hands and the grinning face of one very happy thunder god. "I can take these, and there will be no trouble? I won't be—Anthony, don't touch that!"

Tony froze on the spot, his hands inches away from a stuffed bilgesnipe head that had been mounted on the wall. "I wasn't touching anything."

Loki rolled his eyes. "You were about to. That head is enchanted. If you try and touch it without using the appropriate words, it will animate and bite your head off. Literally." Shaking his head, he picked two of the books to add to his pile and began sliding the rest into their appropriate slots on the shelf.

"Well, now you've got me curious." Tony put his fists on his hips and grinned up at the furry fixture. "What are you hiding inside this head?"

Thor shook his head and laughed. "You mistake the magic for a safeguard, Man of Iron. Loki has always enchanted his personal belongings, simply because he knew I would touch them if I ever got into his room."

Loki managed a small smile at that. "Indeed. When we were young, I used to enchant everything in my room to at least some degree. That way, I would always know if Thor had come in without my permission."

"It gave me much grief, but it was also a fantastic challenge." Thor approached the fireplace and ran his fingers over the mantle. "Loki liked to keep magical little trinkets on this shelf, and the one time I actually managed to get my hands up here, they turned blue!"

Tony snorted. "The trinkets?"

"No, my hands." Thor laughed heartily, crossing the room and gesturing to the window. "This used to have such an enchantment on it that if I tried to climb or fly in through it, I would come out on the other side covered in stardust. That is to say, I was covered in a substance similar to your Midgardian glitter, and it would not come off until Loki commanded it so."

Loki chuckled then, joining his not-brother by the window and looking out over the city. "Come now, Thor. You didn't always get covered in stardust when you came in that way—sometimes it was feathers or dragon spit."

Tony joined the two men by the window, crossing his arms over his chest and giving them a cocky smile. "Oh, yeah. Your relationship is definitely on the rocks. I can see why you hate each other so much."

Loki and Thor looked at each other for half of a moment, but Loki was quick to turn his attention to things outside.

_Don't complicate things, Anthony. I barely know what to think so as it is._

"It is true. Loki and I have had many differences, and I have failed him in a lot of ways, but…" Thor smiled, a reminiscent light shining in his eyes. "We had good times, too. Once we were old enough to go to battle, I became rather hotheaded and arrogant. I was proud of my conquests—as I should have been, for they were great—but I allowed that pride to blind me."

_Not you, too, Thor._

For a moment, the thunder god didn't say anything, a heavy silence settling over the trio that the two mortals absolutely refused to break.

"However… things were different when we were here at home." Smiling again, Thor spread his arms and gestured to the magnificent chamber. "Loki loved to play tricks, and I saw every one of those tricks as a challenge that could make me stronger."

"Is that so?" Loki crossed his arms over his chest and gave the older man a look of disbelief. "I think you just liked invading my privacy."

Thor shook his head vigorously. "No, not at all. You should know, Brother, that I have always preferred the hunt over the capture. Trying to outsmart all of your tricks and traps was great fun for me."

Loki stared at him for a moment or two, and then he allowed a small smile to tease at the corner of his mouth. "I vaguely recall a conversation similar to this one taking place when we were younger."

"I am sure it occurred more than once. We spent centuries playing pranks and trying to outwit each other with mischief. I always lost, of course, but it was still fun." Thor was practically beaming, and Loki knew it was because they were having a civil conversation with each other.

_He had the same stupid look on his face last Christmas._

Loki pushed himself off of the wall and surveyed the room one more time, conducting a quick mental inventory before uttering a satisfied hum. "I think I have the most important things. We can get back to the others, if you like." His train of thought was immediately derailed by movement in his peripherals. "Anthony! For the last time, do not touch the bilgesnipe head."

Tony stepped away from the fixture, folding his hands behind his back and smiling innocently. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Honestly, you are a child sealed within the body of a man." Loki shook his head and picked up the two packed bags from the floor. "If you want to touch a head so badly, go to Thor's room. It's completely covered in pelts and bones and trophies of the like."

Tony turned around, walking backwards out of the room with a big grin on his face. "Seriously? Thor, I need to see that. I need it."

Thor looked between the two men, a sudden tension running across his shoulders. "I do not think it would be wise to do so now. After all, they may finish with the negotiations any minute, and we want to be waiting for them when they do."

Loki scowled, his eyes narrowing. _Thor… _

Tony kept walking backwards, beckoning the gods with his fingers, seemingly unaware of the change in atmosphere. "If they haven't finished yet, what are the chances they're going to finish in the next twenty minutes? Come on, Thor, it's for science."

"I really do not think we should. What will Odin think of Earth's Mightiest Heroes if he finds them playing around with stuffed beasts?" Thor wet his lips, fidgeting with the strap on his hammer as he walked. "Let us return to our comrades. If you wish to see new creatures so badly, I will take you out and show you a live specimen once the negotiations are over."

Loki gripped the bags a little tighter, interjecting himself into the conversation. "Thor, you are not the liar in this outfit, so do stop trying. You're an embarrassment." He turned his head, meeting the guilty gaze of the older god unwaveringly. "Truly, now. Why do you not want us to go to your chambers?"

"Loki, please. I do not want to fight with you. We can discuss it later—"

But Loki wasn't listening anymore. He had already started marching down the hall in the direction of Thor's room, his feet remembering the path before his mind even had the chance.

"Loki, please!" Thor caught up with him quickly, pleading as he walked alongside. "I cannot say this has nothing to do with you, but I can tell you that you can do nothing to change it. Please, let it go."

Tony fell in step on the other side, trying to support his teammate and prevent something he was undoubtedly clueless about. "Hey, Reindeer Games, maybe we should just listen to Thor. I mean, we don't really need another reason for Big Daddy to get mad at us, right?"

Loki didn't respond to either of them, caught between a wall of panic and a wall of rage.

_If he doesn't want me to enter his room, then there must be something in there he knows will anger me. There is not much left here on Asgard that would do such a thing, but if anyone would know of such things, it would be Thor._

"Loki, please, you have to trust me. You do not need to know my secrets or my reasons for keeping them."

_Odin must have convinced him that I am beyond help, and that they would need leverage to contain me. _Loki scoffed. _He did it again. His loyalty to Odin and Asgard beat his supposed love for me, and he has given them something that can be used against me. Some piece of information, something he could have only learned during my time on Midgard…_

"Loki, please don't go in there. You can still walk away."

The trickster whirled on his heel, spitting out a challenge. "Why don't you just grab me and drag me away? You're certainly strong enough, _Son of Odin._"

Thor looked at him, his expression pained, as though the confrontation was causing him physical agony. "I will not force you to walk away, Loki, but I am asking you to. I am asking you as a friend. I am asking you as… as your brother—"

"You are not my brother! You never have been." Loki turned back around and grasped a handle in each hand, tugging hard and pulling the doors wide open.

If a pin dropped on the other side of the palace, Loki would have heard it.

He didn't know what he had been expecting when he felt that old, familiar anger swelling in his chest. What he thought he might find at the bottom of Thor's pitiful lies. Where he thought his suspicions were going to take him. It was so clear that something was wrong, but he had still been in the process of laying out the possibilities when he got his first look at the room. His brain had already decided that there was a threat, but it had yet to formulate what that threat might look like.

"Thor… why is your room empty?"

Silence.

"Thor." Loki took a shaky breath, determined to make it to the end of his sentence without losing his composure. "Tell me. Why is your room empty?"

There was a sigh, and then Thor's defeated voice floated up to him. "Because all of my belongings are on Midgard."

_No. _Loki clenched his fists, dragging down another lungful of air and staring endlessly at the naked chamber laid out before him. _No. This isn't right._

"Loki, please—"

"You love your room." Loki forced himself to take a step, able to reconstruct the layout of the chamber in his mind and sickened by the contrast reality was throwing in his face. "No matter where you go, no matter how long you stay away, you always come back here." He turned around, his eyes beginning to burn as the truth sank in. "Why are your things on Midgard, Thor?"

He didn't need to ask. He knew what Thor was going to say. He knew why the room was empty. He knew why Thor hadn't referred to Odin as 'Father' one single time since their arrival. He knew why Thor hadn't stopped to chat with Heimdall. He knew why Steve had been the one to speak on behalf of a prisoner instead of the realm's own crown prince.

He knew, but he didn't believe.

"Because I live there now," Thor answered plainly, keeping his eyes down.

Loki glared. "You have lived many a place, Thor."

"Yes, I have." Thor raised his eyes from the floor. "I am simply staying indefinitely this time around."

Loki shook his head, uttering the only word he could process in that moment. "No."

Thor's expression hardened, eyes still brimming with pain, but guarded with an unwavering determination Loki knew he couldn't beat. "This is why I did not want you to know. This was my choice, not yours, and there was nothing you could have done to talk me out of it."

There was a metallic creak, followed by a clearing of the throat that reminded the two Asgardians they were not alone in the room.

"I, uh, I hate to be the awkward third wheel here, but I have no idea what's going on." Tony looked between the two of them, more than a little concerned. "Thor, what did you do?"

Heaving a sigh, the thunderer finally accepted defeat and began to explain. "Several months ago, during the H.Y.D.R.A. attacks, I was here on Asgard. While I was here, Odin and I exchanged... words… and I was given a choice. I could return Loki to the Asgardian justice system and focus my time and energy on the welfare of Asgard, or I could keep Loki on Midgard and give up that which I did not have the time or dedication for. To put it simply… I am no longer Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard. I am simply Thor."

"You're an idiot," the prisoner whispered, staring at the fists he had yet to unfurl.

Thor inclined his head towards the younger god. "What?"

"I said, 'you're an idiot!'" he screamed, throwing his bags to the floor and crossing the room with nothing but fire in his veins. "You gave up the throne to the most powerful realm in all of Yggdrasil, you turned your back on your family and your countrymen for _sentimentality._" Jabbing his finger into Thor's chest, he continued, unable to stop himself from shaking as the tirade continued. "You imbecilic, blockheaded, oaf! Are you so unable to accept defeat that you would surrender your throne, your family, and your _home _just so you can continue living in denial?"

Thor slapped his hand away, drawing himself up to his full height and staring the younger down. "You think this is about accepting defeat? I did not give up Asgard to prove a point, Brother, I gave up Asgard and all that comes with it because I love you too much to give up on _you." _

"I know you do, and that's why you're an idiot!" Loki beat his fists against the taller man's chest, his screams echoing in the silence that followed them, angry tears slowly pushing their way out of the corners of his eyes.

"Brother…?"

Loki hit him again, lowering his head until he was staring at the floor. "Why, Thor? I have done nothing but hurt you. I have spit in your face, and I have stabbed you in the back, and I have rejected your every attempt to reach out to me. I…" His bit his lip, his own words rushing back to him, fists curling through the fabric of Thor's tunic.

_"You're certainly strong enough, Son of Odin."_

_"You are not my brother! You never have been."_

Loki inhaled slowly, holding Thor's shirt a little tighter in the hopes that it would stop his shaking. "Just… moments ago, I did it again. I threw your title back in your face." He shook his head, alternating between licking his lips and chewing on them. "I did it again, and this is what I find. You…" He hit him for a third time, striking him with everything he had but failing to cause any damage. "You idiot! You stupid, witless, buffoon of a man." He hit him again and again and again, screwing his eyes shut in an attempt to stop the stinging in his eyes. "You brainless, senseless, fatuous, asinine, moronic, worthless, sentimental, boorish, ridiculously absurd brother of mine!"

Loki choked on his words, swallowing a sob and striking the man in front of him one last time for good measure.

"Loki…"

He only shook his head, staring at their feet through a thick veil of tears. He couldn't remember the last time he had said that word without feeling a surge of bitterness and anger rise within him. Before the Battle of New York, before Jotunheim, before he let the Frost Giants into Asgard. Before Midgard earned more than a passing glance from either of them, that word had begun to darken, slowly developing a taste like old vinegar that soaked into his tongue a little more each time he said it

_Brother._

"Thor," Loki whispered, still refusing to meet the other man's eyes, tears dripping from his nose and lips as he struggled to get his emotions under control. "I am sorry."

"I know, Brother." Thor wrapped his arms around the smaller god and held him tight, tucking his chin over Loki's shoulder and placing a hand on the back of his head. "I forgive you."

There were those words again. Those unbelievable, unfathomable, illogical words.

_"I forgive you." _

Steve had forgiven him outside of the cave, and now Thor was forgiving him while they stood inside a marble reminder of all he had given up for the very person who needed forgiving.

Loki shook his head and pushed away, bringing his sleeves up to his eyes and quickly wiping away the evidence. "I really hope I don't make a habit of this." He squared his shoulders and sniffed, trying to get his composure back under control.

"Here." Tony pulled a small pack of tissues out of his armor sleeve and handed it over.

Loki blinked in surprise but took them nonetheless. "So, do _you _make a habit of this, Anthony?"

Tony chuckled, shaking his head. "No, it's just really nasty when you sneeze with the helmet on. You only make that mistake once." He sobered then, giving the god a more serious look. "But it happens to the best of us. Seriously, we were all in a huge slump just a few months ago. Everyone deals with things in different ways. I put myself in a drunken stupor, Thor punches out a wall, and you cry like a little girl."

"Man of Iron!" Thor exclaimed, grabbing the man by his arm. "That is not going to make him feel better!"

"Oh, come on, it was a joke. Jokes make everyone feel better!"

Loki laughed, reaching up to cover his mouth and quickly dragging the noise back down to a soft chuckle. "Well, in the long run, my method costs the least amount of money and leaves the least amount of evidence, and therefore cannot actually be proven to exist at all."

"Uh, it can be proven if I take a picture of you on my StarkPhone."

Loki grinned, wagging his finger in the inventor's face. "Unfortunately for you, you made the terrible mistake of allowing me to keep my magic. No such picture would exist for very long, Anthony."

Tony and Thor both smiled at him, and despite the fact that he could still feel tearstains drying on his cheeks, he smiled back. They were gracious enough to pretend nothing had happened, and he intended to take full advantage of that.

"So," Tony clapped his hands together, turning and making his way towards the hall. "If I'm understanding the situation correctly, there is, in fact, a bilgesnipe head in my tower right now."

Loki smiled slightly, reclaiming the bags he had dropped earlier and turning to look at Thor. "I don't recall. Do you actually have your own bilgesnipe head?"

"Indeed, I do, Loki." Thor gave the trickster a toothy grin, his use of Loki's name not going unnoticed.

_He understands. He understands that it's not a simple matter of having one incredibly raw conversation. He understands that it's going to take time for us to repair what we've lost, if repair is even possible at this point. _

Loki smiled to himself. _He really has changed. _

"I think you should let me fly over the waterfall now."

"Absolutely not, Anthony."

_But then again… so have I._


	26. Chapter 26

"Oh, my."

Loki turned in a slow circle and scanned the room from top to bottom, running both hands through his hair and letting out a heavy sigh. Everything happened so quickly after the jet hit the building, and he hadn't had much time to think about property damages in the midst of the chaos. Now that he was back in the tower, however, he was hit with the realization of just how much damage had been done, and he wished more than ever that he had the strength and magic at his disposal to fix it.

"I believe 'oh, my' is what they call an understatement, Jakodi Laufeyson."

Loki tore himself from his thoughts when he heard the young prince's name, directing his attention towards their foreign guest and trying to recall exactly how the situation had been explained to him not one hour earlier.

_"This is Jakodi. He is your second younger brother, and he handles most of the foreign policies on Jotunheim. I am sending him along partly because Captain America and I were discussing a possible alliance between our realms, and partly because Jakodi has expressed an interest in getting to know you."_

Loki had to wonder if the boy had approached Leiknyrr first, or if Leiknyrr had asked his siblings what they thought of the idea after he himself had expressed interest in getting to know them. Then again, it didn't matter all that much. Jakodi, for whatever reason, had decided he wanted to get to know his brother, and Loki was hardly of the mind or position to say no to him.

Unfortunately, he had no idea how to actually breech conversation with the young man, so he opted for a group discussion instead.

"What happened to the agents?" the trickster asked, approaching the overturned couch and nudging it with his foot.

Tony jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Most of them are in timeout downstairs."

"Timeout?" Loki arched a brow, continuing when another question piqued his interest just a little bit more. "Most of?"

"They're in cells," Bruce, the only other human in the room, cast the inventor a disparaging look. "Three died in the explosion, including the bomber, and another is having… a mental breakdown of sorts. We're keeping him separated from the others and have him on suicide watch right now."

Jakodi frowned, indigo lines forming on his brow. "Suicide watch? Is that like sanctuary?"

Bruce rubbed the back of his head, somewhat confused. "Well, I don't know what sanctuary is, but when you put someone on suicide watch you… watch them so they can't commit suicide."

"Stellar explanation, Spectacles." Tony rolled his eyes.

Jakodi didn't seem to mind, though, nodding his head as he contemplated the description he had been given. "If you declare sanctuary over someone, you gather a group of ten people and a military officer and you all share a duty to ensure that person is never alone. Theoretically, it encourages people to continue their daily lives without putting them at risk."

"Interesting." Bruce pursed his lips. "I wonder how that would work in a city environment, though."

"Probably not well." Jakodi glanced out over the city, fully displaying the symbols shaved into his hair while simultaneously sending the remaining ponytail over his shoulder. "It is very easy to lose someone in a civilization that is so… busy and impersonal."

Thor smiled, finally mustering up the courage to interject himself into the conversation. "I understand your sentiment, but the city is not so bad. We can show you around, if you like." He paused then, glancing between the two brothers who were actually related by blood. "Or, if you prefer, Loki could be the one to show you around. I didn't mean to, uh, impose."

Loki inwardly rolled his eyes. _He's such a child._

"It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. I am sure Loki and I will have time to talk." Jakodi looked out through the broken wall a moment longer and then turned to face his hosts. "I will go wherever you tell me to, with whomever you decide should accompany me."

Tony raised his hand. "Uh, you're blue. That's gonna be a problem."

Jakodi gave the inventor a look that was so disdainful, so supercilious, so haughty, so incredibly _Loki _it nearly caused the god to recoil.

"Magic. Obviously."

Tony returned the expression with a glare. "Well, then, get on it, Fairy Godmother."

Bruce lowered his head into his hands and sighed, while Loki pinched the bridge of his nose and uttered a similar sound.

"Dr. Banner, do you recall that time you told me if Anthony and I had a baby, it would be the most nightmarish child on the planet?" the trickster asked, keeping his eyes screwed shut.

"Yup."

"I found it."

"Yup."

Tony gave them an incredulous look. "You speculated about what kind of kids Loki and I would have?"

Thor frowned, looking between the two men with an utterly dumbfounded expression. "I do not understand. Why would you and the Man of Iron have a child? _How _would you have a child?" He stopped then, his confusion turning to horror. "Loki! I thought the story about the eight-legged horse was a joke!"

Loki dropped his hand and met the panicked eyes with an even, lethal stare. "It was, and quite a cruel one, if you ask me. But regardless, the idea of Anthony and I bearing children was simply a metaphor used to explain how our personalities, when put together in equal parts, would make quite an unpleasant fellow."

"Well, if you ask me," the young prince started, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently. "There is nothing quite as unpleasant as dealing with Asgardians and Midgardians in the same setting, but you haven't heard one complaint out of me, have you?"

There was a general pause as the group struggled to determine whether or not their guest was serious, but then Loki's eye caught a familiar, mischievous glint, and he quickly shot back a retort. "Then I suppose it's a good thing nobody asked you."

Jakodi laughed, gesturing towards the nearby exit. That is to say, he gestured to the nearby gaping hole in the wall. "If I could be given an appropriate frame of reference, I can disguise myself, and we can get this tour underway. I would very much like to see more of this… Manhattan Land."

Tony snorted. "Manhattan Land."

Bruce shook his head and rolled his eyes, pulling out his phone and bringing up an image browser. He typed in a few words and then handed the phone over to Jakodi, watching as the young man inspected the device in his hands.

"I think I can do that." Handing the device back to its owner, the foreigner looked down at himself and rubbed his fingers together, a soft glow forming between the tips. "I suppose I should also try to look a little like you, shouldn't I?"

Loki blinked, caught off-guard by the question. He never really thought about the fact that, unlike his adoptive family, his biological siblings would actually look somewhat like him. "Yes, I suppose so."

Jakodi nodded and, after concentrating a trice more, expanded the pale blue light until it engulfed his body. It lasted only a second, the glare clearing away until there was nothing but a fair-skinned, black-haired, green-eyed young man standing there.

Looking down at himself, Jakodi tugged on his black t-shirt and frowned. "It's touching me," he stated, as if that was supposed to mean something.

"Well, it is clothing," Loki supplied.

Jakodi cast him a brief glare. "I know that." He let go of the shirt and looked down at his sweatpants, glaring at the sandals on his feet. "I don't like it."

Tony gestured to the outfit. "Make the shirt white and the pants gray. Dark colors attract sunlight, and its summertime here, so that's not a good idea."

Jakodi looked down at himself and summoned the light again, changing the fabric accordingly. "How is that?"

Tony gave him a thumbs up and turned towards the demolished archway. "Come on. We'll show you around, and then maybe you can use a little bit of that mumbo jumbo to fix the tower up."

Bruce started walking after the inventor, throwing an apologetic look over his shoulder. "You don't have to do that. We can manage just fine."

Jakodi simply nodded, going to follow the duo before stopping and turning to face his fellow aliens. "Thor and Loki, I have a question." He opened his mouth, then closed it, and then opened it again, seemingly unsure of what he was asking. "What exactly is a Fairy Godmother?"

Thor shook his head. "I do not know, but I imagine it had something to do with the one known as Point Break."

Loki shrugged his shoulders. "I know only of the mammal called Rudolph. His other chosen titles are mysteries to me."

Jakodi gave a slow, uncertain nod and then turned to follow the mortals out onto the streets, Loki and Thor trailing behind him.

_I wonder, is this what human families do. Visit each other and tour each other's places of living? _Loki glanced at Thor, who was now entrenched in a deep contemplation of his various nicknames. _Thor wouldn't have to stay down here on Midgard. He could rule Asgard right and proper, and we could simply visit each other from time to time._

It was a brief thought, but he tucked it away for further consideration. Thor had given up more than Loki had ever realized in order to keep his brother safe, and Loki had had just about enough of the bumbling oaf constantly looking out for him. Eventually, whether Thor liked it or not, he would have to take the throne in order to keep the peace in the Nine Realms. It would do him no good to alienate his people in the days and years leading up to that moment.

_I should push him to include himself in the negotiations between Jotunheim and Midgard, and the next time I visit Asgard, I will most certainly have to get some books from my room. Someone has to teach that idiot all the laws and regulations he never paid attention to in school, and there's no telling how soon the next Odinsleep will come, so he'll have to be ready as soon as possible._

Frowning, the prince stopped that train of thought.

_Well, I suppose I should talk to him about it before I begin planning._

Not that Thor really had any say, but Loki would still ask. It would be terribly impolite to do otherwise.

* * *

"Help."

"I do not understand."

"We have been staring for ten minutes."

Loki rubbed his face, letting out a groan and looking at the image again. "I feel as though it's supposed to be saying something. There is something here we're not seeing."

Jakodi crossed his arms over his chest. "I am fairly certain this is just a mural of a human crawling out of a severed rat."

"Why is he holding an apple?" Thor rubbed the back of his head. "If you step back and look at the whole thing, it looks sort of like a teapot. Does that mean anything?"

Loki frowned, cocking his head to the side. "How do you… Oh, I see it."

"I think it would help if I knew what a teapot was." Jakodi frowned. "Why does it have an eyeball on its cheek?"

"Probably for the same reason it has an abnormally thick, elongated neck," Loki replied.

"And… what exactly is that reason?"

"Oh, I have no idea. I am simply assuming there is one." Loki shook his head and turned around, facing their two tour guides with his hands on his hips. "I don't suppose you can explain this to us?"

Tony shook his head. "No one can explain modern art except for hippies and hipsters."

Thor turned away from the mural as well, confusion creasing his brow. "Does this have something to do with their hip-ness? That is to say, are they superior in the hips?"

"Well," Jakodi rubbed his chin, glancing upward with a thoughtful expression. "If one has exceptional hips, perhaps one feels as though pants are like the carcass of a rat."

"That would explain the apple." Loki chimed in, quickly seeing where his younger brother was going with his train of thought. "Because if one has large hips, one might diet, and apples are certainly healthy."

"No, no, guys." Bruce shook his head, trying not to laugh and failing. "It's just—hippie and hipster are just terms for people who—"

"—smoke pot all day?" Tony finished.

Bruce buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking as he lost himself to the laughter that, up until that point, he had managed to keep at bay.

Tony, of course, had to keep going. "Tell me, Bruce, do you have exceptional hips? I think I have some pretty exceptional hips, if I do say so myself."

Loki crossed his arms over his chest, tapping his foot impatiently. "Anthony, I don't appreciate your mockery."

Bruce straightened up and wiped his eyes, letting out a loud sigh. "We're sorry. It's just—it's a culture gap. Modern art just can't be explained or understood except by very special people. That's all."

"Special people with special hips."

"Tony, stop it."

The trio of foreigners exchanged looks, but ultimately, it was Loki who suggested a change of scenery. "Perhaps there's something a little more… logical or commonplace we could be occupying ourselves with?"

Tony snickered. "Yeah, we can do that. It's about lunch time, and I think you two are way overdue for a cheeseburger."

Thor smiled widely, nodding his head. "Indeed, they should partake in the cheesiest of burgers. They are most delicious."

Loki arched a brow. "I have been here for a year, and no one has given me these most delicious things of which you speak?"

"It's been a busy year," Tony protested, starting in the direction of what the god assumed was the cheeseburgers. "When things are slower, Steve does a lot of grilling, but between you, and H.Y.D.R.A., and S.H.I.E.L.D. disintegrating, and Jotunheim, there just hasn't been time."

Jakodi bowed his head and slouched his shoulders in a slight bow, his voice sincere. "I apologize for my home's disruption of your schedule."

Bruce waved it off, falling in step behind the only other human in the group. "No, no, that isn't what we mean. It's not a bad thing, it's just a time consuming thing. Sometimes, you have to pick one good thing over another good thing because you simply don't have time for both." He put his hand on the prince's shoulder, offering him an encouraging smile. "You wouldn't be here to negotiate an alliance if we didn't like your planet, right?"

Jakodi looked at the hand, clearly confused by the gesture, but then he reached over and gave it a pat. "I see. I will send those sentiments on to my mother; I am sure she would like to know you consider our involvement with your planet to be a good thing."

Bruce removed his hand, still smiling, and shoved it into his pocket. "Do you get along with your mother? Or is it more of a professional relationship."

Jakodi opened his mouth, and then he closed it, apparently giving the question a lot of thought. Loki slowed his steps, glancing over his shoulder and listening intently to what the negotiator might say about their mother.

Finally, Jakodi let out a sigh. "Thor Odinson, do you swear on your life not to use this information against me?"

Thor blinked. "Of course. I am not entirely sure how I would use the information you are about to give me even if I wanted to."

"You are Asgardian. I have to be sure." Jakodi replied without hesitation, and after another second of thought, he gave his answer. "We get along very well. My mother and I are close."

Loki glanced at Thor, trying to gauge his expression and determine how bothered he was by being singled out. He couldn't get a reading, though, and instead he turned his attention back to the conversation.

"What about with your siblings?" Bruce chuckled, gesturing towards the two gods. "They didn't along very well. Is that common in royal families?"

Jakodi nodded. "Very common, but not in ours. Mother was very clear on that point. If she ever caught us competing with each other for the crown, we would be immediately disqualified from ever obtaining it at all. Needless to say, we kept in line."

Tony threw a hand in the prince's direction. "See, that's how you do it. You two, take notes."

Loki crossed his arms over his chest. "It won't do us much good now, Anthony." Then, before the billionaire could answer, he begged another question of his estranged brother. "How old are you, Jakodi?"

"I am 902."

Tony did quick math. "So, you're about eighteen."

"I suppose so." Jakodi shrugged his shoulders. "I have never attempted to calculate my Midgardian age."

Thor turned around, walking backwards beside Tony. "Loki has told me he has thirteen siblings. You are the second oldest, correct?"

Jakodi nodded his head. "My older brother, Rán, isn't as… open-minded as myself. He didn't like the idea of…" He trailed slightly, meeting Loki's eyes with an element of shame in his own. "He didn't want to meet you. He is still quite upset about the attack on Jotunheim."

Loki gave a single nod. "Understandably. I am surprised you're here, to be honest."

Jakodi laughed in an almost nervous manner, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, I am the soft-hearted one. Brother says I need to be harder if I want to rule our home."

Thor smiled at that. "Nay. If I have learned anything in my one thousand years, it is that I do not know how to perform interrealm negotiations. You are more like my b—like Loki. You would make a fine king, I am sure."

Jakodi seemed caught-off guard by the compliment, and with a wary sort of glance, he nodded his head and offered his thanks. "I appreciate your vote of confidence, Thor."

Thor gave him another smile and turned around to walk forward once more, calling over his shoulder. "Tell us more about your siblings."

"Well…" Jakodi pursed his lips for a moment. "There's Rán and I, and then after us comes Saari. She'll be 885 when the winter comes. After that, mother had a stillborn, our brother, Valdi. He would be 871 this year. Then, we had three sisters, each born a decade apart. Sandri, Rúni, and Ásmari, who would be 842, 832, and 822, respectively."

"Would be?" Tony asked, looking over his shoulder as he walked.

Jakodi nodded. "Rúni died in the war against Nidavellir."

"Oh. Sorry."

Jakodi shook his head. "There is nothing to be done about it now." But he remained silent for a moment before continuing. "Then we got another brother, Kaj, who is exactly one century younger than myself. Then came two sisters…"

* * *

Bruce smiled to himself as he brewed the second cup of tea, glancing across the room to the couch every now and then just to get another look at the expression on Loki's face. It wasn't all that obvious—or at least, it wouldn't have been if Bruce didn't know him so well—but there was a glow in his eyes that reminded the doctor of a child on his birthday.

"I think we've had a pretty successful day. What do you think?"

Loki offered him a small smile, nodding his head. "I think it went very well. I enjoyed having some free time on the streets. I've never really had the chance to explore before."

Bruce smiled back, carrying a cup in each hand over to the coffee table and having a seat opposite his patient. "We learned some interesting things about your biological family, too, and I thought Thor handled himself very well."

Loki nodded and sipped his tea. "Anthony, on the other hand…"

"Hey," the scientist lifted a finger. "He might not have been good, but he wasn't terrible, either. Be thankful for the small miracles."

"I still can't believe he said that out loud in public." Despite his claim, he started sniggering to himself the moment he finished his sentence.

"I can." Bruce joined in, kicking off his shoes and pulling his legs up onto the chair. "What I did not expect was Jakodi's reaction." He laughed again, recalling the incident with another round of stifled chuckles.

Tony and Bruce had taken the princes on the subway as a part of the tour, and everything had been fine until the train stopped for the first time. Jakodi hadn't been paying attention and consequently stumbled into Tony, who, of course, couldn't keep himself from making a comment.

"Don't worry about it," Tony had said, interrupting Jakodi's apology. "Most people can't help but throw themselves at me. I honestly can't believe you lasted this long."

Jakodi had stared at him in utter confusion but hadn't said a word. He simply adjusted his shirt and grabbed onto one of the handles on the ceiling, returning to the conversation that had been interrupted by the stop. Tony had enjoyed a good laugh, commenting to Bruce how easy it was to mess with new aliens and how they should invite them over more often.

This had lasted until the next stop. As soon as the train had come to a halt, Jakodi looked around and, spotting Tony, threw his entire body against the man. They hit the ground, and the young prince had quite loudly declared, "Man of Iron, if you wanted me to throw myself at you, you needed only to ask."

Bruce sighed, wiping his eyes. "I have told him I don't know how many times that one of these days, his sass is going to backfire on him."

"Perhaps he will think twice before mouthing off next time."

There was a beat, and then they both shook their heads.

"Nope."

"Never."

Bruce let out one, final chuckle and lifted his cup to his lips. "So, speaking of Jakodi, how are you feeling about that?"

Loki opened his mouth immediately, and Bruce knew there was a lie dancing on his tongue, his instincts telling him not to be honest about what he thought and felt. But then he swallowed it, wet his lips, and tried again.

"I am… pleasantly surprised. I still don't know how I feel about Leiknyrr, and I honestly thought she wouldn't pass my request on to my siblings. I…" He trailed off, glancing towards the far wall.

"Loki." Bruce spoke earnestly, his heart going into his voice as he pleaded with the man across the table. "Tell me. You always wait until everything hits the fan, and then it's too much to handle, and it's a mess."

"I know that!" Loki glared at him, clenching and unclenching his fist on the armrest. "I know that."

Bruce stopped, letting out a brief sigh and trying to approach the issue from a different angle. "Loki, you trust me to do my job, right?"

Loki nodded once.

"This is my job. I hesitate to tell you that, because I don't want you thinking I don't care. I do care. But if it helps you feel more secure, this is technically my job. Even if we were just in a patient and psychiatrist relationship, and none of the Avengers business was involved, HIPAA wouldn't let me use any of this information against you."

Loki was silent for a moment, and then he let out a sigh. "Again with the hips."

Bruce smiled weakly. "Yeah. Humans are big on hips."

"I've heard they don't lie." Loki spoke with a marginal amount of mirth, a ghost of a smile flitting across his lips before he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Bruce waited, not wanting to push him so far that he closed up.

"I... never really fit in with anyone. On Asgard, I mean. I took after Frigga in some ways, probably because she taught me much of what I know, but there was no family resemblance between Thor and Odin and myself." He paused. "As Thor and I got older, he made friends, but I never fit in with his group, and I wasn't good at making friends on my own. I told myself—and everyone else, for that matter—that it didn't bother me, but that wasn't entirely true. I always thought there was something… wrong with me."

Bruce nodded silently, listening without a single interruption and harboring no judgement in his eyes.

"What I was going to say was that I didn't expect Leiknyrr to pass on my request, and even if she did, I assumed they wouldn't want to meet me. Because of my attack on Jotunheim, yes, but also because I assumed I would be too… different, I suppose." Loki pursed his lips. "Instead, I found Jakodi to be so like me that it is almost frightening."

Bruce smiled at that, nodding in agreement. Jakodi and Loki certainly shared some core personality traits, and while they expressed it in different ways, it was undeniable proof that they were family.

"That was it." Loki waved his hand to encourage participation. "It was just a thought."

Bruce offered another smile. "Thoughts are good." He took a drink and set his cup down on the table, taking a pause to collect his thoughts. "First of all, I want to tell you there's nothing wrong with you. Everyone needs a place to belong, and most people have a hard time finding it. That's why uncontested divorce is so devastating. It's why adoption is so hard and takes so much work. It's why so many kids put themselves through horrible things just to get into a group of 'cool' kids. I could list hundreds of songs, books, and movies that have been written based entirely on the concept of finding a place to belong. You aren't the only one who struggles with that." Then he chuckled nervously, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't want to turn this around and make it about me, but—"

"Tell me." Loki set his teacup down and leaned forward, resting his chin in his hands and his elbows on his thighs, giving the man his full attention. "You've given me your ear for more than a year now. I think it's time I gave you mine."

Bruce blinked. "You sure?"

Loki nodded instantly and seamlessly, his composure unwavering.

"Alright, well…" Bruce took a deep breath and let it out, much like Loki had before sharing his own story. "Well, look at me. I'm scrawny, I'm smart, and I wear glasses. Grade school was a nightmare, and home wasn't much better." He chose his words carefully, not wanting to put the attention on himself, but still wanting to get his point across. "It was… a typical abusive household. My father beat my mother and myself… he called me a monster all the time, which is actually kind of ironic." He forced a laugh, running a hand through his hair. "One night, he got too mad, and he… killed her. After that, I was tossed around from relative to relative until the military pulled me out of high school to recruit me."

Loki nodded his head, listening with the same attentive silence Bruce had always used with him.

"I didn't belong at home, I didn't belong at school, I didn't belong in any of the temporary houses I lived in, and I certainly didn't belong in the military." He paused, wetting his lips and trying to summarize his thoughts. "It has taken me a very long time, but I found where I belong, and that is right here. I am an Avenger, and they are my friends, and this is my home. I belong here." It sent a chill up his spine, just saying it aloud. "So, my point is that there is nothing wrong with you for not belonging, and you shouldn't give up on finding a place where you do belong."

Loki sat back, staying quiet and still for quite a while. He stared down at his lap, lips pursed and brow creased, index finger tapping his thigh. Bruce took the time to remove his glasses and wipe them clean on his shirt, content to wait for Loki to find his voice.

"How many people have you told?"

Bruce looked up, equal parts startled and confused. "What?"

"Your story. How many people have you told?" the god pressed, still staring down at his lap.

"Uh, just Tony." Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "It's not that I'm hiding it from the others, they've just never really pressed me on it. I don't really like to talk about my past, but if there's a chance it could help me understand someone or help someone understand themselves, then I'll bring it out in a heartbeat."

Loki looked up then, a soft smile on his face. "Just Anthony and myself?"

Bruce gave him a wary look, still completely lost. "Yes...?"

"So, that means you trust me?"

Bruce blinked in surprise, and then his own features melted into an understanding smile. "You and I are the same in that we don't really trust anyone, but yes, you are one of the very few people I have placed some of my trust in."

Loki smiled to himself, clearly satisfied with that response. "Good."

Standing up, the trickster grabbed both of their cups and walked over to the Keurig, intending to brew them each another round of tea. There was still a faint smile on his lips when he turned around, waiting for the machine to heat up.

"Dr. Banner, if you ever need or want to talk about your past again, you should know I would be more than willing to listen." Loki gestured towards the chair. "I'll even let you keep the chair."

Bruce chuckled, head wagging. "I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."

Loki hummed in response, moving one cup of tea to the side and placing the empty mug on the machine.

"So." Bruce paused, unsure as to which topic would be the best to go to next. "You and Thor seem to be doing a bit better. Yes? No? Maybe so?"

Loki hummed again, this time mixing it with a heavy sigh. "That's practically an entire session in and of itself."

"So?" Bruce grinned. "For the past month, you've stayed anywhere between five minutes and an hour and a half late."

Loki stared at him for a moment, then his face scrunched up, his gaze pointed upwards as he tried to recall the past several sessions. "Oh." He looked back down. "I suppose I did."

"I mean, if you've got somewhere to be…"

"Ha, ha. You're hilarious." Loki grabbed the teacups and returned to his couch, sitting down and placing the drinks on the table. "Thor, Thor, Thor… where do I begin with Thor?"

"Just start pulling thoughts out. It'll become coherent eventually."

Loki rolled his eyes. "You always say that."

"And it always works."

Bruce sipped his tea, warmth stirring in his chest as Loki began to follow his advice. He could still picture the look on the god's face when he came to that first session. Angry, defensive, tense, afraid, hiding. To sit there and watch as Loki reclined on the couch, relaxed and even smiling from time to time. To watch the way his little ticks and habits changed, how he rarely picked at his hands or fiddled when they talked; how it was easier to coax him into sharing his thoughts when before it had been such a struggle. Bruce couldn't help but smile.

Sure, Loki had a long way to go. He was still distrustful, and if his escape attempt was any indication, he wasn't comfortable enough to want to stay with the Avengers long-term. He still had to pay off his debt to society, and getting along with one out of thirteen estranged siblings was hardly a family-wide reconciliation.

But as far as Loki was from the finish line, he was even farther from the starting point.

And Bruce couldn't have been more proud of him.

* * *

"Exactly how long have you been planning this?"

Loki glanced over his shoulder, still pulling the large, black bags from one of the closets in the building where he had spent many of his community service hours sorting clothing for the homeless. "Well, I intended for my escape to be a bit more discreet. So, six months?"

Steve shook his head. "How did you manage that under constant watch?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders, pulling out the first article of clothing. "No surveillance is truly constant, save for Jarvis. All I had to do was wait until no one was looking and put it in a bag. It's what all the other clothing was put in, so no one noticed."

Steve looked at the shirt he had pulled out, tilting his head to the side. "Damaged clothing?"

"Severely damaged clothing." Loki turned it around to reveal a slew of holes spread across the back of it. "But not for long."

Loki quickly flicked his wrists, and when the fabric stopped moving, Steve could see a faint, green glow travelling across the ripped edges and pulling them gently back together. Seconds later, the shirt was like new, and Loki quickly folded it and set it aside, grabbing a pair of jeans stained with blood.

"That's incredible, Loki."

"Levi, please. Just because the building is empty, it doesn't mean we can act as if we're alone." But Loki smirked slightly, feeling a little bit of pride welling up inside of him.

"Right, sorry." Steve quickly corrected himself. "That was incredible, Levi."

"Please, this is child's play." It was, and Loki knew he could do so much better, but it felt good to see the soldier impressed with him. "Talk to me again when you've seen what I can really do."

Steve only grinned some more, planting his fists on his hips and shaking his head. "We didn't have anything like this back in my day. I know I say that a lot, but I mean, we _really _had nothing like this back in my day."

Loki chuckled softly, moving through the bag at a faster pace once the magic began to feel familiar on his fingertips. "No, I don't suppose they did."

Steve walked over to the growing pile of repaired clothing and began to sort it, taking each piece to the labelled bin it belonged in. "So, your magic was the reason you were so sick last year, right?"

Loki nodded his head, not looking up from the task at hand. He realized a moment later that Steve probably hadn't looked either and offered a verbal response. "Yes."

"Then why aren't you sick now?" Steve returned to grab another armful. "Not that I want you to be sick, I just don't understand."

"I knew what you meant." Loki shook his head, hiding his smile in the trash back as he grabbed a jacket out of the bottom. "I got sick when I unlocked the first seal because my human body disagrees with my magic. It only lasted a few days, and then it faded, but it would flare up a bit every time I unlocked a seal. However, it flared up less each time. Essentially, what was happening was my body was building up a tolerance to my magic. Every time I released magic into my system, it got a little easier for my body to adjust."

Steve nodded slowly, sitting down on the nearby table and waiting for Loki to fix more clothes. "But if your body had completely adjusted, why did your escape hurt you so much? And why isn't it affecting you now?"

Loki tossed a shirt in the soldier's general direction. "When I was unlocking my seals, I almost never used my magic, and I certainly didn't use large quantities of it. I did that to make sure no one caught on, but it backfired. My body was used to having magic inside of it, but it was not used to expelling it. I used too much, too fast, and my body couldn't handle it."

"What's the difference? Between using it and having it, I mean."

"Well, it's…" Loki paused, squinting at the ceiling and trying to think of a good analogy. "Think of an athlete. He spends all of his time in his basement working out, walking and jogging and lifting weights. His legs get incredibly strong and muscular. He decides to sign up for a hundred-yard-dash. He collapses, because he has trained his legs to endure, not to be used intensely for a short period of time." He shrugged his shoulders. "It's not a perfect analogy, but I think you get my point. Having my magic inside of me built up a tolerance to a certain level of energy constantly being there. When I stopped the jet and immediately teleported, I put my body through two, sudden, powerful bursts that it wasn't ready for."

Steve hummed, nodding his head in understanding. "Makes sense. So, now your body is used to constant magic, and you've moved on to using short bursts, which will eventually build up a tolerance for jet-stopping magic."

"Exactly." Loki moved on to the third bag, pleased with the progress they were making. "Once we're done here, I would like to help clear up the debris piles we've been sorting through. It will go much faster with magic, which means they'll be able to start rebuilding sooner."

Steve smiled at him, nodding his head. "That's a great idea."

Loki grabbed the fourth bag and started to wade through another mess of fabric and miscellaneous stains he chose not to think about. "So, how did the negotiations go?"

Steve shrugged his shoulders. "It's hard to tell. I can't exactly make a pact for the entire planet, but it's not really fair to offer six people when they're offering their army. For now, the agreement is that Jotunheim can call on the Avengers for aid, and the Avengers can call on Jotunheim for aid, but they decide how many forces they send. If that's twenty people or twenty-thousand, we have no say."

Loki scowled. "That's no good. There isn't enough rapport between Midgard and Jotunheim. They would have no reason to offer any more than the bare minimum."

"I know." Steve sighed. "Jakodi is going back home tomorrow, and he said he would talk to Queen Leiknyrr to see if there's anything that could help balance the scales. If we could export some kind of resource, or… something. Just something so we're not cheating them."

Loki nodded. "I'll let you know if I have any bright ideas."

Steve offered a brief smile. "Thanks."

"Now get back to work." Loki threw a shirt at the man's head, sticking out his tongue.

Steve spurred into action, jumping from the table and grabbing an armful of the clothes. "Sorry, I got distracted."

Loki laughed softly, shaking his head. "It does not bother me, I was simply jesting."

"It suits you," Steve replied.

"What? Jesting?"

"No. Laughing."

Loki stopped, considering the words as he found himself arriving at the bottom of the bag. _I never really thought about how much I lost over the years. Laughter… I didn't laugh for so long that people actually make comments when I do. It wasn't even a laugh. Not really, it was more of a chuckle._

He heaved a sigh and moved on to the fifth and final bag. He was probably smiling more, too, and he hadn't even realized it. Not that he minded. He was only concerned about what other people might think if they noticed it.

_They'll think I've gone soft, or that I've got some sort of trick up my sleeve._

"No."

Loki jumped, turning around and slapping the dirty hand out of his face. "No, what?"

"I don't know, but you looked upset. I meant that as a good thing, Levi. It's good to laugh. Here on Midgard, we say laughter is medicine for the soul."

"That is pitifully maudlin."

"I'm afraid I don't know what that means." Steve rubbed the back of his neck, a hint of red coloring the tips of his ears. "I, uh, sorry. I was never very good at English."

Loki blinked, and then he tilted his head back, looking down his nose at the other. "Well, that is unacceptable. I suppose I'll have to expand your vocabulary for you. Maudlin: tearfully and weakly sentimental."

Steve nodded twice. "Got it."

Pulling out the very last shirt, Loki gave the soldier a smirk. "Don't look so abashed. I have been developing my vocabulary for over one thousand years, you can hardly expect to understand everything I say."

Steve smiled a bit, lifting a finger. "Well, I know what abashed means."

"Of course you do, you read poetry for fun. I imagine your vocabulary is more expansive than you realize." Loki fixed the shirt in seconds and put it way, gathering up the empty bags and stuffing them into a trash can. "Still, I can teach you quite a bit more. Some of my favorites include acumen, enervate, ignominious, erudite, insidious, prevaricate, loquacious, obsequious, taciturn, truculent, and tintinnabulation."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Indeed, I am."

Steve groaned, placing both hands over his face.

"Of course, we can't forget to talk about French. For example, _ennui_, _tête-á-tête,_ and _carte blanche_. Oh! I almost forgot bivouac, imbroglio, picayune, and impecunious. What about magnanimous? You're very magnanimous, Captain."

Steve gave him a smile, clearly more amused than annoyed, and Loki let himself return the expression. Steve was one of the few people who tolerated his games, and it was too good of a chance to pass up.

"Denouement!"

"Extradition."

"Well, that was unnecessary."

Steve only smiled.

* * *

Loki took a deep breath, running both hands through his hair and willing his heart to stay in his chest. He fiddled with his shirt, scratching at his knees and drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. His mind was split in two, each half offering its own opinion on the situation and subsequently escalating the amount of cortisone in his system.

_Have they let you down yet? They have been kind and fair, and they have given you a second and third chance. Whatever they want to talk to you about, they aren't just going to abandon you. _

Drumming on his jawline, he tried to force air into his lungs, jaw clenching tight despite his every attempt to relax.

_You were a prisoner from the beginning. That's all you've ever been—they wouldn't risk their planet, their people, their own welfare for **you**. I thought you learned your lesson when you wound up Jotunheim. You can't trust them, and you can't get comfortable. They aren't in this for you, they're in it for themselves._

Loki couldn't recall the last time he had been so nervous. When he first arrived on Midgard, when he was sent to Jotunheim, when he escaped with his magic, and when he was taken back to Asgard, he had been given an idea of what to expect. He had been nervous all those times, unsettled and jittery, but not like this.

_I have to calm down, or I'm going to make myself sick._

His leg bounced as he sat, looking around the empty meeting room, counting to ten forwards and backwards in every language he knew.

"So, then she says to me—Hey, Reindeer Games, you're here early."

"Really, that's what she said?"

Loki turned around in his chair to see Tony and Steve standing in the doorway to the meeting room, both men appearing as relaxed as ever. That was a good sign.

"I didn't want to wind up being late, so I aimed for the other extreme," he replied.

Tony took his seat on the other side of the table, a satisfied sort of smile lingering on his lips. "Well, as soon as everyone gets here, we can get started."

Steve sat down on Loki's left, giving the god an encouraging smile. "Don't worry. It's just a normal meeting—no attacks on the entire planet or undercover organizations breaking their cover."

Loki was encouraged by the soldier's words, but he still couldn't quite manage a smile. "That's good." He scratched at his knee again, watching his fingers intently, once again arguing with himself. "That's very good."

_Just ask. No, just wait. Ask and get it over with. Don't show them your hand. Just ask. _

"Did I do something?" Loki blurted out the words before he had another chance to counter with himself, looking at his captors in turn. "I just—I would like to know what's going on. If someone could enlighten me…"

Steve shook his head emphatically. "No, no, you didn't do anything."

"Well, you did, but that was like three years ago, so…" Tony brandished his rather infamous snarky grin, and it was their combined efforts and the sense of familiarity they provided that ultimately calmed him down.

"I see." Loki leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. "That's very good."

"You didn't do it without the rest of us, did you?" Bruce spoke from behind, causing the god to jump, and then he eased himself into the seat on Loki's right. "They didn't tell you anything, right?"

Loki shook his head, confused and still somewhat unsettled. "I—"

"Of course they didn't." Clint took the seat between Bruce and Tony, placing him at two o' clock on the round table.

"Indeed. If they had, I would have most certainly demolished their heads." Thor sat down next to Steve, giving Loki a smile.

"We've got to work on your social skills, Goldilocks."

"Alright, we're all here." Natasha sat between Tony and Thor, filling the last chair and folding her arms on the table. "Tony?"

"Right." Tony cleared his throat and placed both hands on the table. "So, as you know, S.H.I.E.L.D. was completely dismantled, and thus, there is no Director Fury here to give us orders. We have officially been a solo act since January, and while that does have its perks, it also means we have a significantly smaller amount of resources."

Loki nodded slowly, brow creasing as the situation became more and more perplexing.

"You, Loki, are an excellent fighter, very intelligent, knowledgeable about the Nine Realms, a master magician, a link between Midgard, Asgard, and Jotunheim, and basically all this other stuff that makes you super valuable. Okay?"

Loki looked around at the other members of the team, hoping he would find an answer in their faces but coming up empty handed. "What are you saying, Anthony?"

"I'm saying—" Tony tossed a small, flat rectangle across the table, "—you would make a great asset."

Loki picked up the card—because that's what it was, a card, like a credit card—and looked it over. It had a large, blue A taking up the left-hand side, a line of similarly colored arrows crossing over to the right edge. Above that, there was a picture of himself—when Tony said 'smile for me,' the god had no idea this was what he was up to—and beneath that, in bold black lettering, was his name.

"…I do not understand."

"You've been a big help, Reindeer Games. You came through for us more than once, and you had the chance to back out each time. Now, don't get too excited, we're not asking you to become an Avenger. If you look, we have gold cards and yours is silver." Tony took his out and slid it across the table so Loki could compare them. "What we're offering is for you to become an official ally. You offer us your skills and your allegiance, and we offer you some of our trust."

Loki stared down at the cards, looked up at Tony, and then looked back down at the cards again.

"Now, that card does have a chip in it, so we would still be able to track your movements, but our cards have that, too. Jarvis uses it to tell everyone else where the distress signal is coming from and how to get there. But we would remove the locks from your door so you could go anywhere on this floor anytime you want. We would decrease the layers of security from 325 to 250. There's some other stuff, too, but you get the gist."

Loki stared at his card, fingering the surface and trying to comprehend what they were saying. "But I didn't do anything."

"Yes, you did." It was Steve who spoke, turning sideways in his chair and giving the god a smile. "You didn't have to be told what to do with your magic, you just did it. You had already figured out ways you could use your abilities to help people. You've been staying at your sessions longer than necessary for almost two months now, and that goes back before you attempted escape. Which, by the way, you attempted after you saved us all from certain death."

Tony jumped back in at that. "It's not like we're setting you free, and you've still got a schedule to follow. Okay? You're still a war criminal, you're still a prisoner, and you still aren't going anywhere for a very long time. We're just removing some restrictions and giving you some liberties. We think that you've earned them."

Loki looked around the table, arching a brow in disbelief. "And you all agreed to this?" He turned his head to look at Clint. "You agreed to this?"

Clint crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I didn't agree, I just didn't disagree. I'm _tolerating _this decision and maintaining the status of a neutral party."

Loki looked over to Natasha, giving her a similar inquiry. "What about you?"

Natasha met his gaze and held it for a while, the faintest of smirks tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Brianna's still wearing that bracelet you gave her."

Loki stared back, the smug, all-knowing look in her eyes telling him she had figured out the magical properties of the rope. How _much _she knew was still a mystery, and he was uncertain as to whether or not she told the others.

"I see," was all he offered in reply.

"Loki." Bruce spoke softly, drawing the god's attention to himself and giving him a warm smile. "This is an offer you have a right to decline or accept. If you want to think about it, or maybe go over some more of the details with one of us, that would be fine."

Loki focused on the card once more, looking at the symbol beside his name and picture. It was only three years ago that Earth's Mightiest Heroes had also been Loki's Greatest Enemies. They had foiled his plans, defeated and humiliated him, and shipped him back to Asgard in chains. Then, when he returned, he was made to be a helpless mortal who had to do everything they said, whether he liked it or not.

But they had never abused that power. Even Clint, who had used Loki's inability to fight back as an excuse to poke fun at him from time to time, had never extracted his revenge for all the marauding trickster had done to him. Steve chose to forgive him time and time again, and Bruce chose to look at him without any judgement in his eyes. Tony gave the god a room, food, clothing, and a variety of frivolous items no prisoner really needed. Natasha kept her distance, being the professional she was, but when she did get close, she chose to push him to talk to Bruce and seek the help he needed.

Thor. Thor, his brother, onto whom Loki had placed the blame for all of his rage and pain and hate. Thor had been betrayed, rejected, insulted, ignored, and hated, but he risked everything to give Loki a second chance. Thor brought Loki to this group of people that confused and astounded the trickster in so many ways, all the while holding out hope that somewhere inside the twisted monster there was a little brother that he could still save.

"Hypothetically speaking, if I were to accept, would there be a party to celebrate?"

Tony didn't give anyone else a chance to respond. "Oh, yeah. I'll take any excuse to party."

Loki sighed dramatically, tossing the gold card back to its owner. "Then I suppose I don't have a choice. I'll have to accept your offer."

Tony grinned like a maniac. "Welcome to the not-evil side, Reindeer Games."

Loki smiled, pleasantly surprised to find he didn't hate the sound of that.

In fact, he kind of liked it.


	27. Chapter 27

"You wanted to speak with me?"

Loki glanced up from his book, swallowing the tea he had just taken a rather large drink of and offering his reply. "Yes, I did. I didn't necessarily mean first thing in the morning, but yes." He took another sip and set the drink aside, putting the book on his nightstand and getting to his feet. "You like coffee, don't you?"

Thor gave a quick nod, glancing around the room with more than a little trepidation. His heart ever fastened to his sleeve, he displayed his worry and confusion without making even the slightest attempt at hiding it.

"I just wanted to talk to you about the Jotunheim-Midgard negotiations." Loki cast a small smirk over his shoulder, pressing the necessary buttons on his miniature Keurig to brew Thor the bitter beverage he liked so much. "You've been trying to talk to me for years. I thought you would be over the moon with excitement, not skittish and jittery as newborn foal."

Thor rubbed the back of his head, giving the younger male a nervous smile. "I am excited. I am simply confused. You have not approached me to converse since… well, you have not approached me to converse."

Loki shrugged his shoulders, reclaiming his tea and giving it a sip. "Fair enough." He sat down at the small table and gestured to the seat across from his. "But here we are, having a conversation. So, please, sit down."

Thor nodded, smiling slightly, and then he made himself comfortable in the offered chair.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, but the silence wasn't awkward or tense. Loki couldn't speak for Thor, but he was thinking back to the day the older god had come into his room and requested his assistance with the Berserker Staff.

_"You keep saying 'we' when you reference The Avengers. Are you interested in signing up, Mr. Magic?"_

Clint may have been mocking him at the time, but Loki couldn't deny he had spent the last several days walking around with a silver card in his pocket. Somehow, somewhere along the line, he had gotten sucked in.

_ I still don't know how._

"So… what is it you wanted to talk about?"

Loki shook his head, tearing himself from his thoughts and returning his attention to Thor once again. "Right. I wanted to speak with you about the negotiations. I think you should be more involved in them."

Thor frowned, tilting his head to the side. "Why?"

"Because, regardless of your status on Asgard, you are one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and you understand more about the Nine Realms than the Midgardians do. You're the closest thing they have to a link between Jotunheim and Midgard." Loki took a sip of his tea, inwardly questioning his decision to start that particular conversation.

"You would be more suited than I, don't you think? You are actually of Jotun descent, and you know as much about Midgard and Asgard as I do, if not more." Thor's brow creased in confusion, though he didn't seem entirely opposed to the idea just yet. "Why do you think I should do it?"

Loki wet his lips, taking a deep breath and spreading his hands, as if he were physically presenting the idea. "Because I think you need to be prepared to take the throne of Asgard, and being involved in those negotiations will help with that."

Thor, surprisingly, didn't explode in a fit of rage, but he immediately shook his head. "No. Father was very clear that I am not to return home unless I give up on you, and I am not going to do that."

Loki nodded, folding his hands in his lap and giving Thor a brief smile. "I understand that, but Asgard needs a king, and there is no telling when Odin is going to succumb to the Odinsleep again. You need to be prepared—"

"Loki, my answer is no." Thor glared, that familiar anger flashing in his eyes. "I have already made my decision. There is nothing left for me on Asgard."

Loki glared right back, quickly losing his own patience and feeling his temper start to boil, a sense of 'here we go again' starting to overtake him. "Would you _please _just let me _finish, _you blockheaded oaf, so I can explain?"

"What is there to explain?" Thor stared down at his coffee, his hands wrapped tightly around the mug. "You know why I gave up the throne, so I can't imagine why you would want me to take it back."

"That would be where the explaining comes in." Loki crossed his arms over his chest, staring the other down. "Of course, I should have expected such an endeavor to be pointless. You didn't actually do it to repair our relationship, you did it to make yourself look good."

Loki didn't actually believe that, if only because Thor was too transparent to pull it off, but it had the desired effect nonetheless.

"You know that isn't true," the thunderer shot back. "I knew from the beginning I couldn't be the one to fix our relationship, so there would be no point in giving up something so important on the off-chance you might accept a lie as enough to satisfy you."

Loki sipped his drink, speaking coolly and watching the older god's face. "I didn't say it wasn't a stupid idea, I simply said it was what you did."

Thor stood up, slamming his hands down on the table. "Loki, this is madness! I gave up the throne for you, not for myself." He narrowed his eyes. "Manipulation and lies are your specialty, Brother, not mine."

Loki stopped, calmly setting his cup aside before rising to his feet and slamming his hands down on the table with twice as much force as the man he was staring down. "Yes, Thor, I suppose you're right about that. My ability to deceive people is astounding, whereas your most prominent abilities have more to do with making everyone in the family _hate you!"_

Thor stopped, eyes widening slightly. He opened his mouth but couldn't find the words he was looking for, and after a painfully silent minute and a half, he chose to hang his head and sigh.

"I am sorry, Loki." Laughing bitterly, the thunderer shook his head and lifted his gaze to meet his brother's. "I lost my temper again. I didn't listen to you. I… I made a mistake, and I am sorry."

It was Loki's turn to stop and stare, a sour taste filling his mouth as he realized what he needed to do next. Thor might have refused to listen to him, but he was the one who chose to turn the conversation into an argument instead of simply telling the thunderer what he had done wrong.

"I'm sorry, too." Loki crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the wall and keeping his lips pressed tightly together in a silent message that he would not be elaborating on his apology anytime soon.

Thor smiled at him anyway, sighing and taking a sip of his coffee before trying to speak again. "So, you think I should be prepared to take the throne. Explain."

Loki nodded his head, taking a drink of his own to wash away the taste of his wounded pride. "If Odin falls into the Odinsleep, Asgard is going to need a king. Obviously, it would have to be you. You say Odin doesn't want you to neglect Asgard in favor of me, and I understand that you are determined to stay here on Midgard, but you have to think about the Nine Realms as a whole. I don't particularly want you to go back to Asgard right now, but I think you should be prepared to spend an undetermined amount of time there."

Thor nodded slowly. "I understand that. Is there more?"

Loki almost laughed. "Of course there's more. My plans are never so simple."

"Of course. I should have known." Thor offered him a warm smile and lapsed back into silence so the trickster could continue to explain the inner workings of his mind.

"If you do need to spend an undetermined amount of time on Asgard, I think we could still manage to keep in touch without sacrificing the wellbeing of the Realms." Loki paused to take another sip and then continued, setting the now empty cup aside. "I am already going to be on Asgard once every three months to have my magic checked, and if Father let you use the Bifrost to visit me during my time on Jotunheim, I can't imagine he would have a problem with me using it to come and visit you."

Thor smiled widely. "You would visit me?"

Loki stopped, having forgotten that such a fact was not implied, given their recent history. "I… Yes, that was the point of this conversation. Explaining to you that you can stay in Asgard when necessary without…" _Giving up on me. _"…losing contact."

If Thor could have smiled any wider, Loki was certain he would have, and the thunderer was quick to forget about everything that had been said up until that moment. "Then you are happy that I chose you over Asgard?"

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose, brow creased with frustration. "I don't know if happy is the right word…"

"But you are accepting the gesture? You are not telling me to go back?"

Loki looked up, confusion flashing across his features for a nanosecond before melting into a mildly touched understanding. "No, Thor, I am not telling you to go back. This is for the good of the Nine Realms, not because I want you to leave."

Thor was practically shaking with excitement.

"Granted, that doesn't mean I want you to stay, it only means I don't want you to leave. I am quite apathetic towards the entire situation, so don't get any ideas."

Thor was still beaming wordlessly, nodding his head to show he understood.

_Oh, no. What have I done?_

"Can I make little conversation?"

Loki arched a brow. "Beg pardon?"

"You know, asking about trivial, pointless things just to talk."

Loki stared for a few moments more, and then it clicked. "Small talk. You want to engage in small talk."

Nodding eagerly, the blonde replied. "That is what I said."

Shaking his head disdainfully, the other replied back. "Not quite, but close enough."

Thor finished his coffee and pushed his cup over to join Loki's. "So, how have you been lately?"

"I can't complain. Well, I could, but I don't think it would do much good." Loki leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "How are you, Thor?"

"I am doing quite well, thank you for asking," the thunderer said. "I am doing very well, actually."

"Gee, I wonder why," the trickster drawled.

Thor only laughed, and Loki couldn't help but wonder whether or not he had just made a terrible mistake. Still, he would enjoy it for now, and if there were consequences later, he would deal with them then.

"Thor, tell me about the work you do on the streets. I don't believe we've ever worked together, and I'm quite curious."

"Well, usually I provide shade and rain to fight the heat, but in these colder months…"

* * *

"What are they trying to do?" Loki leaned forward, scowling at the monitor over Natasha's shoulder. "Why are they looking for my staff?"

Natasha blew her bangs out of her eyes, fingers never ceasing in their rapid dance across the keys. "We don't know. That's kind of why we're here."

Loki rolled his eyes, straightening up and crossing his arms over his chest. "I know that, but I was hoping you had some ideas after looking at the files." He leaned forward again, squinting at the image in the upper left-hand corner. "Is that Dr. Selvig?"

There was a pause as Natasha took a moment to look, and then she nodded.

"Well, that's rather stupid. Dr. Selvig can't locate the staff. He made a portal with the Tesseract, but only after the staff opened his mind—"

Clint snorted from his lookout by the window.

"—so if they can't find the staff in the first place, they have no business going after him," Loki finished, pretending he hadn't heard the noise.

Natasha clicked a few more buttons and stood up, pulling the drive from the machine and stuffing it into one of her many, many pockets. "That's irrelevant. They think they need him, so we need to warn him, and we need to find out who wound up with the staff when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell apart."

Loki nodded and turned towards Clint. "Clear?"

Clint didn't respond for a second, eyes darting left and right before he finally dipped his head. "Clear." He lowered his bow and stepped away from the window, joining his comrades by the door. "Let's get out of here. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies."

"Well, we can't have that," the god quipped.

"Boys." Natasha glanced over her shoulder, the rest of her threat going unspoken as she walked out into the hallway and started down the stairs.

_I don't suppose I have much experience performing reconnaissance, but this seems a little too easy. _Loki scowled, looking around for a moment before casting his gaze behind him.

Clint stared back, blinking slowly. "What are you looking at?"

"You, obviously." Loki smirked slightly, knowing he couldn't give any outward indication of his concerns. "I honestly didn't expect you to allow me to come along."

Clint narrowed his eyes, exhaling loudly. "Well, I wasn't happy about it, I can tell you that. But I let them give you that card, and I don't intend for it to be a freebie."

Loki broadened his grin. "So, this is me earning my keep?"

Clint arched a brow and twisted his lips. "Sure, let's call it that."

"It's more like he's hoping you get killed on one of these missions." Natasha spoke suddenly, stopping at the door that would lead them out of the building. "Now, before we go any further, is there anything _else _you two need to talk about?"

Clint and Loki both opened their mouths to speak.

"No." Natasha held up a finger, pointing at them in turn. "The correct answer is no."

Silence reigned between the three of them, the two men sharing a mutually disappointed expression while Natasha turned around and grabbed the door handle, letting out an exasperated sigh. Loki got the distinct feeling that she didn't actually expect them to stay quiet, and that was good, because he also got the distinct feeling that Clint didn't intend to stay quiet.

"Watch your back, Loki."

Loki stared dead ahead, waiting a few seconds before responding to the whisper with one of his own. "I thought this was too easy."

Clint also remained silent for a moment, making a variety of noises under his breathe, probably so it would look like he was mumbling to himself. "Stay close to us. Fight to kill."

Loki almost smiled. _You don't have to tell me that, Barton. _But he kept his thoughts to himself, slipping his hands into his pockets and taking a knife in each. He was no stranger to ambushes, thanks to his brother's habit of charging headfirst into situations that were clearly traps, and while he wasn't sure exactly what he was up against, he was confident in his ability to take it down.

"Ugh, I need a new one." Clint pulled at his bowstring, scowling. "Look at this. She deserves better than this."

Loki blinked slowly. "That is a bow, Barton."

"It's _my _bow," the archer corrected. "She deserves a better string than this. Maybe a new paint job, too… I should reinforce her. She's been through a lot."

Natasha turned around and began to walk backwards, pulling her gun from her holster and aiming it at her longtime partner's head. "If you don't stop _talking_—"

"Aw, come on, Nat."

_They're trying to ready their weapons without drawing suspicion. _Loki fingered his knives, keeping his hands concealed. He didn't need to prepare them in any way, so he would keep the advantage of secrecy for the time being. _But it looks like I definitely will need them._

Natasha turned back around and started walking forwards, breaching the outermost edge of the forest that surrounded the H.Y.D.R.A. facility. "I am trying to teach Loki good mission habits. Not talking is one of them."

Clint snorted. "Well, good luck, because you won't get him to shut up with or without me."

"Excuse you," the prince interrupted. "I resemble that remark."

"I think you mean you _resent _that remark." Clint reached up to finger one of his arrows.

Loki shook his head. "No, I got it right the first time."

Clint actually laughed at that, pulling his arrow out all of the way and tapping it idly against his right thigh.

"I knew I should have left you at home," Natasha sighed.

Loki smirked. "I would have had no problem staying behind."

It happened in an instant. Natasha turned to the left, Clint turned to the right, and Loki turned around, unleashing two arrows, two bullets, and two knives in perfect unison. It was beautiful, in its own way, the synchronization of their movements, and Loki couldn't have chosen a better duo to have his back.

"I didn't think you would catch on." Natasha shoved her guns back into their holsters and began to fire blue light from her wrists instead. "Nice job."

Loki picked up two more knives and threw them into the fray, using magic to call all four back to himself a moment later. "Give me some credit, Natasha. It wasn't even that difficult." He wet his lips, taking a quick inventory of his enemies before charging all four blades with magic and sending them back into the mess of soldiers coming from the direction of the fort.

Loki threw his hands out and watched as the knives shot through not one, not two, but seven men each. He took a deep breath, somewhat winded by the effort, and then called them back, pulling them through another twenty-eight men on their way. This didn't leave him with much opposition, and of the six remaining soldiers, four of them fell victim to perfectly normal throwing knives.

_I really have missed this. _Loki ran forwards, grabbing one of the grunts by the head and quickly snapping his neck. _It's been almost a year since H.Y.D.R.A. attacked. _He reached out and grabbed the next soldier by the wrist, jerking the hand down and to the left as it fired a gun, the bullet burying itself harmlessly in the ground. _I should ask Captain Rogers if he would be willing to spar with me. I think I would enjoy that._

Loki screeched to a halt with his hand hovering midair, green eyes narrowing at the woman whose arm was now up over her head in an attempt at self-defense. He considered following through, grabbing her hair with one hand and seizing a knife in the other so he could cut her throat.

_I suppose if I'm going to be working with heroes, I'll have to display some sense of morals._

Scoffing, the god shook his head. "Coward." He grabbed her by the shirt and swung her into a nearby tree, dropping her unconscious body to the ground a moment later. "Don't make me regret that, wretch."

Turning around, he snapped his fingers and summoned the four misplaced daggers back to his hands, keeping the blades wedged between his fingers as he turned to see if his allies needed help.

Clint loosed another arrow and dropped the last man from his direction to the ground. "Geeze." He shook his head at the trickster in disapproval. "See, that is exactly why we shouldn't have let him keep his magic."

Natasha fired twice more, the last of her opposition crumbling, and started running towards the jet. "It was _your _idea, Clint."

Loki stopped, eyes widening and sliding from the assassin to the sharpshooter. "What?"

"Pretend you didn't hear that." Clint turned and started running after Natasha, motioning for the god to follow him. "We've got bigger things to worry about."

Loki allowed himself another moment of shock, but he was quick to fall in line behind the two Avengers, giving the topic another ten seconds of attention before shoving it to the back of his mind.

"Exactly what things are we worrying about?" Loki questioned, falling in step beside the archer as they approached the jet. "I thought we still didn't know what the information meant."

"We don't." Clint looked over his shoulder and, after a moment of hesitation, folded up his bow and put it on his back. "But we've got a twelve-hour flight to look at it and try to get some answers. We're going to need all of our attention focused on brainstorming."

Loki gave a single nod and ran up the ramp, turning around once he was safely inside to ensure Clint followed him all the way in. "So, what do we know?"

Clint hit the button on the wall and waited until the door was shut to answer. "That's an excellent question. Natasha?"

"Get the drive," she called from the front, flipping a switch overhead. "Put it in the laptop and see what we got."

Clint moved to the front of the jet, and Loki followed him, sitting down on the floor while the archer took the copilot's chair. Natasha handed the flash drive to Clint, who took it and began fumbling with the ports on the StarkPad.

"Well, we know they are after my staff," the trickster began, resting his chin in his hand. "We know they have at least some level of interest in Dr. Selvig, and we know at least portions of the organization are still functioning."

Natasha nodded, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. "Do we assume the attack on the Tower was a part of their plan, or was that a renegade team acting independently?"

"Neither." Loki raised a finger, wagging it in Natasha's direction. "Don't jump to conclusions so quickly. It could be part of the plan, and it could be an independent team, but it could be that the main organization is trying to cut deadweight. Or, slightly more disconcerting, that was a distraction for a completely different plan, and they completed it right under our noses."

Natasha frowned. "You think it's that complicated?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders. "I think it's unwise to underestimate our enemies."

For a moment, she looked like she was going to object, but then she started to nod. "I guess I was thinking they were just dismantled less than a year ago, but the fact that they existed within S.H.I.E.L.D. for as long as they did is evidence that we can't take them lightly. Not even when they're supposedly defeated."

Clint snapped his fingers, pointing towards the ceiling. "Alright, I got the files. You ready?"

Loki nodded, while Natasha gave Clint a disapproving look, like he should have already known the answer to that question.

"Ask me questions, then," the archer snapped.

Loki folded his arms on top of his knees, sighing softly. "See if you can find any particular reason why they're looking for my staff. Even if you can just find what resource they want from it, that would be very helpful."

"Okay, gimme a sec…"

That was how it went for the next four hours. Loki and Natasha asked questions, Clint would find related materials in the files, and then the three of them would discuss the information they found and what it might mean. Natasha said H.Y.D.R.A. might have been interested in the staff for its mind control properties, given their history with brainwashing. Clint said the staff also doubled as a weapon, which they might try to mass produce. Loki said it didn't make sense that they would look for Selvig if they were going to make weapons or manipulate people because the staff could do that without any help from the doctor. They tossed the question around a bit more, and then they tucked it away in the back of their minds, moving on to the next subject and repeating the process.

"Okay, either someone else needs to read the files, or we need to take a break, because I can't see anymore." Clint stretched his arms over his head, yawning loudly. "Ugh, what time is it? I mean, in the States. What time is it there?"

Natasha stifled a yawn herself, looking at the clock and performing some quick mental math. "It's, uh, six in the morning."

Clint groaned. "We've been up all night?"

Loki caught the yawn and didn't even bother to fight it, pulling himself to his feet and trudging towards the back of the jet. "If you wake me up in a couple of hours, I can keep an eye on the jet."

Natasha let out a tired laugh. "You don't know how to fly it."

"True," Loki replied, flopping down on the fold-out bed. "But I know how to identify flashing warning signs. If you put it on autopilot, I'll be fine."

Clint threw his hand over his mouth and yawned. "Or someone could just wake me up in a couple of hours, and I could actually fly the jet."

Loki heaved a sigh, relishing the feeling of his body lying on a flat surface, too comfortable to start a fight with the archer. Not that it was the most luxurious bed in the world, but he was lying down on a semi-soft surface to sleep, and that was a very satisfying feeling.

"I'll set an alarm, Nat. Make sure you turn on the emergency autopilot, just in case."

"I won't fall asleep, Clint. I've been trained to stay awake for a minimum of three days."

Clint only laughed, falling onto the bed fastened to the wall opposite of Loki. "Whatever you say, Nat. Just hang in there."

"Mhm." That was the only response she offered, and afterwards, the jet fell into a peaceful silence.

Loki let out a quiet sigh, folding his arms under his head and opening his mouth to speak. He didn't know what to say, though, so he simply lay there with his mouth open, struggling in silence.

_I meant to do it months ago, but I was planning to leave, and I kept using that as an excuse to put it off. _Loki wet his lips. _It's not really something I can avoid. It's not something I particularly want to avoid, either, I'm just not sure what to say._

"Agent Barton."

Clint grunted, already half-asleep.

"I know this is more than a little delayed, but you told me to wait until we were not in peril to do this, and I suppose I put it off for quite a while after that."

Clint opened his eyes and blinked at the trickster, dumbfounded, clearly having no idea what his bunkmate was talking about.

Loki wet his lips again, meeting the archer's eyes for a second before looking up to the ceiling. "I wanted to apologize for using the staff to control you. I forced you to hurt people you cared about and to go against your moral principles. My actions were… self-serving to say the least…" He swallowed, not liking the silence, especially because he knew Natasha could hear everything. "I wanted to say I'm sorry. That's all."

Clint didn't respond for several moments, and then he let out a weak laugh. "You making sure you don't owe me?"

Loki shook his head, still staring up at the ceiling. "No. I heard you snort when I mentioned the staff opening Selvig's mind. I've been meaning to apologize for a while… and you gave me an opening today."

There was another round of silence, and Clint rolled over on his cot. Loki waited, having no intention of continuing the conversation unless prompted, but within five minutes, Clint was snoring softly.

_Well, that happened. _Loki closed his own eyes and let out a sigh, his brain submerging itself in the fatigue of the long day. _It doesn't matter. I did my part, so my hands are clean. Clean as they can be, anyway._

Besides, of all the things he had to atone for, traumatizing one person who knowingly placed themselves in dangerous situations on a daily basis only went so high. If he was going to dedicate his time and energy to anything, it was fixing the city and figuring out what H.Y.D.R.A. intended to do with his power.

But that would have to wait, too, because he was way too tired to try and stop the curtain of darkness that was surging towards the center of his brain. He could solve all of the world's problems when he woke up.

* * *

"Happy 535th day of captivity!"

Loki drew his arms up and covered his head, trying to shield himself from the shower of glitter and confetti raining down from above. "Really, Anthony?"

Tony laughed, tossing the empty bag aside and flipping over the back of the couch, landing beside the god with a bounce and a grin. "It's Christmas: The Sequel, and that means you've been here for almost eighteen months. Just think, this time last year, you were planning your great escape, and now you're one of us."

Loki arched a brow, giving the inventor a look of disbelief. "I don't know if I would say that. I've only been on two missions."

"So?" Tony threw his feet up on the coffee table and folded his arms behind his head. "Being a hero isn't all about the missions, you know. Just look at the city." He gestured towards the window, giving the trickster a genuine yet somehow still cocky smile. "That brand new hospital didn't build itself, and it would have been much more expensive if we had done it ourselves."

Loki only shook his head. "You're too easily impressed. If I had more than two seals unlocked, it would have been done even quicker and free of charge."

Tony lifted a bottle to his lips and took a few swigs before replying. "Not the point. We all do what we can in our own way with our own strengths and weaknesses. You do the same thing, and that makes you one of us, so shut up and accept my compliments."

Loki chuckled softly, a smile lingering on his lips as he digested the words being said to him. "You think I'm a hero." It wasn't a question, but with his tone of voice, it might as well have been.

"Does that bother you?" Tony looked at him, all traces of humor gone from his face.

Loki blinked, looking out the window across from them and taking a few moments to think about the question. Did it bother him? Perhaps, at one point, when he had seen heroes as weak and sentimental people who naively deluded themselves into believing there was a world or a race out there worth saving. But he had been bitter then. He had been betrayed by his own heroes, the people he had looked up to his entire life, and his response had been to regard the group as a whole with disdain. He became a villain as a means to an end, a way to obtain the revenge and recognition he desired, but he no longer needed those things.

"No." Loki turned and met the billionaire's gaze. "It doesn't bother me at all."

Tony smiled at him and took another drink. "Then yeah, I do think you're a hero."

"Alright, the kitchen's all cleaned up." Steve came up behind them and put a hand on each of their shoulders, causing them to jump. "It's time to open presents, and then we're gonna watch a movie."

Tony jumped to his feet, finishing off his beverage and setting the empty bottle down on the table. "Cool, I have the perfect movie in mind—"

"You got to choose last year," Steve interrupted, giving the man a disapproving look. "Besides, Natasha already picked out a movie."

"Um, excuse you, but that is my home theater. I have rights."

"What? No, you don't."

"Did Captain America just tell me I don't have rights?"

"That is exactly what just happened, yes."

Loki shook his head and laughed, getting to his feet and walking away from the bickering duo. He approached the group already assembled around the Christmas tree and sat himself on the ground, pulling a pile of brightly wrapped packages closer to himself.

"We aren't waiting for you," Clint called over his shoulder.

"We waited for you all day," Tony shot back.

Clint shrugged his shoulders, already opening one of his gifts. "I have important places to be on Christmas. I never asked you to wait for me."

Loki pulled the first present from his pile and handed it over to the archer. "You ought to take him with you sometime. If he saw what the important thing was, he might stop complaining about it."

Clint accepted the gift with a flat expression and handed one back. "Right, and then he would just find something else to complain about. I'll keep to my routine, thanks."

Loki laughed, picking up another package and sliding it across the floor to Bruce, followed by another one aimed at Natasha. Eventually, Steve and Tony joined the group, and once everyone had exchanged their gifts, they all began to open them—save for Clint, who had already gotten halfway through his.

"Woah." Natasha stared into the box on her lap, glancing up at Loki and giving him an uncertain look, like she thought he had made some sort of mistake.

Loki waved his hand. "Try it on, see if you like it."

Natasha watched him for a second longer, and then she looked back down, standing up and carrying the box out of the room without another word.

"She'll be back," Loki assured the rest of the group, opening a box of his own and sighing at the contents. "This is from you, isn't it, Anthony?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" The billionaire looked up from his pile of presents just long enough to give the god a cheeky smile. "Come on, fake magic should be a piece of cake for you, and it'll take less energy."

Loki smirked slightly. "I hope you're prepared for me to use both forms of trickery on you."

"Of course I am. But seriously, there are some puzzle books and brain games in there I know you'll love." Tony picked up the smallest package on his pile, twirling it between his hands. "I guess I should open the one from you now, huh?"

Loki shrugged, though the playful grin never quite left his lips. "That is entirely up to you, Anthony."

Tony quickly unwrapped the tiny parcel, holding up the jewelry box he found inside. "Aw, you shouldn't have."

"Just open the box, you dolt."

Tony arched a brow but did as he was told, holding up a small skeleton key and looking across the room. "No, really, you shouldn't have."

Loki shrugged his shoulders, holding out his hand. "Well, if you don't want it…"

"No." Tony immediately pulled the trinket close to himself. "If only because I know you have to be up to something."

Thor, forever unable to maintain a poker face, started grinning and snickering to himself. This, of course, got the inventor's attention, and with another suspicious glare in both of their directions, he leaned down and grabbed Thor's present.

"Geeze, this is heavy… and big." Tony frowned when he pulled back the paper to reveal a wooden chest rather than a cardboard box. "Thor, you do know I won't be impressed, right? I can literally buy anything, so don't get excited."

Thor only grinned wider, biting down on his lip in anticipation, his face beaming.

"Well, that worked. Okay, so I take it I use the key?" Tony grabbed the significantly smaller gift and pushed it into the keyhole, opening the chest and giving the two gods another wary look before finally opening it up.

Tony's jaw dropped, his eyes going wide. "You didn't."

Thor laughed out loud, throwing his fists in the air. "We did!"

Tony stood up and put the chest on the ground, reaching down into it and pulling out his prize. "You got me a bilgesnipe head." He turned around and shoved it in Steve's face. "Look, Steve. Look at this. It's a bilgesnipe head. Steve. Steve, it's—Steve."

Steve laughed and nodded his head, leaning away from the taxidermy monster. "Yes, I can see that."

"I have a bilgesnipe head." Tony sat on the couch and pressed the head to his chest, pulling his knees up and curling around it. "I have a real bilgesnipe head. I just like how the words sound. I have a bilgesnipe head. Bilgesnipe. Head."

Loki leered at the genius, pleased with his reaction. "What was that you said about not being impressed, Anthony?"

"Indeed," Thor laughed, still smiling broadly. "Tell me, Man of Iron, are you able to buy this most glorious trophy with your many billions of dollars?" He extended his hand towards his brother, palm out.

Loki high-fived him without even looking, still smirking at Tony.

"I have only one thing to say to you two, and that is bilgesnipe."

"I leave you boys alone for five minutes, and I come back to find Tony cuddling a head."

Everyone turned at the sound of Natasha's voice, silence falling over the room and staying there until it was broken by an awestruck Steve.

"Natasha, you are absolutely stunning."

She glanced down at herself, spreading her arms to display the floor length, royal blue evening gown she was wearing. It was elegant, to say the very least, glitter catching the light with every movement she made, no matter how slight. Her sleeves rested on the edge of her shoulders, the shimmering strips of fabric melting into the criss-cross pattern that made up the torso of the dress. This, in turn, flowed down into the layered waves of sheer fabric that fell away from the slit running down the front on the left-hand side.

"Thanks." Natasha looked back up, smiling at Loki. "Where did you buy this?"

"Who said I did?" Loki returned the smile. "I told you I know how to sew."

She blinked, looking back down for a moment. "You made this?"

"It wasn't hard. I have had over one thousand years of practice, after all. All I had to do was wait for you to go away on a mission, and then ask Steve to take me to a fabric store." Loki gestured to the center of the dress. "I had to make a guess for the measurements, though, so if you need anything adjusted, let me know. I wasn't sure about the waist."

"No, it's perfect." Natasha's smile grew, the fact that he had handmade it touching her more than the gift itself. "Thank you. I love it."

Loki gave her a nod. He hadn't thought about it until he saw the surprise on her face, but she probably wasn't used to getting handmade gifts—or, in general, gifts that weren't intended as bribes.

"You're welcome."

Tony whistled long and low, still holding onto his bilgesnipe head. "Dang, Prince Charming. I think I'll get you to tailor my suits from now on."

"Pay me, and I'd be more than happy to do that for you." Loki smirked, picking up another gift and slowly beginning to unwrap it.

"Well, look at that," the inventor replied, feigning shock. "First he becomes a hero, and now he's got an honest job."

Loki wagged his finger in the inventor's direction. "I never said the prices or practices would be honest."

Laughter skirted around the room, and then they all returned to their gifts, exchanging thoughts and thank yous in between the openings. Steve got a jukebox loaded with songs from the forties, courtesy of Tony, who of course had to brag about the trouble he went through and the money he paid to get it. He was shut up immediately, however, when he opened a manilla envelope from Steve and pulled out a beautiful rendering of Pepper in the dress she got for her birthday. Bruce received a variety of candles, essential oils, and incense sticks from Natasha, who explained they would all have a calming effect and could serve as a safe and healthy backup in case he felt unable to control himself. Clint got a gift card for an archery shop along with a new bowstring from Natasha, which Loki decided not to tell him was enchanted so that it wouldn't break or weaken with time. Thor got a ridiculously large amount of boxes containing coffee in every flavor imaginable—this was from Tony, of course, who once again puffed up with pride at his gifting accomplishment—and a small-scale model of Asgard which Steve had created with Loki's guidance.

Loki watched it all in silence, leaving his own gifts unattended as he observed the merriment and joy that permeated the group. He saw it swell and grow with every gift opened, every smile shared, and every bout of laughter that was so long and so loud they couldn't breathe. When Tony teased Bruce about the Hulk, and Bruce wasn't upset, but rather, touched that there was someone out there who wasn't afraid of him in the slightest. When Thor punched Steve on the shoulder and Steve was able to punch back just as hard despite the fact that he was a mortal. When Clint would sweep Natasha off her feet and dance her around the room, and she smiled—really smiled—and laughed because she knew she wasn't a sex object to be obtained, but a friend and a partner and a sister in the most ridiculous, dysfunctional, loving family she had ever known.

"What's the hold up, Reindeer Games?"

Loki shook himself from his thoughts and met the inventor's eyes with a dumfounded, "Huh?"

Tony pointed to the untouched pile of presents. "You only opened one. What's the hold up?"

"Oh." Loki blinked and grabbed the present closest to him. "I was lost in thought, I suppose." He slipped his finger beneath the folded paper and started to pull, stopping when he realized the entire room was looking at him. "What?"

Steve shrugged. "Well, we already finished opening our gifts."

"While you were lost in thought," Tony quipped, with no small amount of dramatic flair.

Loki rolled his eyes but said nothing, returning to the task of opening his presents. First came a collection of professional art supplies from Steve, followed by a set of throwing knives from Natasha. Loki wouldn't be allowed to have them unless he was on a mission, of course, but he appreciated them nonetheless. Bruce got him a collection of Midgardian classics and several books containing poetry of varying kinds. Next came a box from Clint, and it was with a loud grunt that the god managed to pull the heavy package close enough to open.

"Ugh, what did you put in here?" the trickster grumbled, already fighting with the paper.

Clint held up his hands and shrugged.

Loki stuck his tongue out, removing enough of the paper to see the top of the box and then pulling off the strip of tape keeping it shut. He pulled the flaps away and looked down, laughing the minute he realized what it was.

"Really?" Loki pulled out a can of peaches and gave the archer as much of a glare as he could while still snickering. "Really?"

"It's great, isn't it? We have an inside joke." Clint gestured around the room. "Look at their faces. They're so confused."

Loki looked around at the other members of the team and realized the gift from Clint was two-fold. Not only did Loki get Christmas peaches—most of which would go to Brianna, of course—but he also got to watch the bewildered expressions of everyone in the room except him and his partner in crime.

"I appreciate both the food and the laugh, Agent Barton."

Clint raised his hands and shrugged again. "What can I say? It's a gift."

Natasha groaned. "You did not just say that."

Loki looked at the assassin with a sickeningly innocent expression. "I don't see why he wouldn't. He saw an opportunity, so he took it. As they say, there's no time like the present."

Clint whooped, standing up and stretching an arm towards his apprentice comedian. "Up top!"

Everyone else moaned, the disgruntled sounds overlapping with complaints and assessments of the puns.

Loki only grinned, quite pleased with himself, and turned to grab the last present, which was a rather large cube wrapped in metallic gold paper. "I take it this is from you, Thor?"

Thor looked away from Bruce and nodded with a sparkling, white smile. "Yes!"

Loki examined, arching a brow and pursing his lips as his eyes scanned the package. For a moment, he considered not opening it, just to irritate his brother, but he decided against it in the end.

Grabbing the paper, he peeled it away only to find another layer of paper in a different pattern underneath.

"Really, Thor?"

Thor simply laughed.

Sighing, the trickster turned trickee pulled away another layer, which of course revealed yet another pattern. He pulled away gold, then green, then red ornaments, then Santa Claus, then Merry Christmas, then red, then reindeer, then green ornaments, then snowy trees, and then gold again.

"Are you kidding me?" Loki blew his bangs out of his eyes, glaring Thor and Tony, who were enjoying themselves entirely too much.

"Come on, come on, it's the last one." Tony laughed and leaned against the arm of the couch, still holding his bilgesnipe in his arms.

Thor waved his hands in a shooing motion. "Go on, Loki, your present is just inside."

Loki glared at the two of them in turn, suspicion coloring his eyes. "I don't believe you."

But he grabbed the top of the box anyway, pulling the flaps away and removing the layer of tissue paper that had been placed on top of black leather ornamented with green and gold accents.

"I thought you might like to wear it on missions."

Loki stared at the jacket with wide eyes and quickly grabbed it, pulling it out of the box and holding it up in front of himself. It was definitely his. It was somewhat different from the one he wore when he attacked New York almost four years earlier, but it had definitely come from his closet.

Loki turned his head to look at Thor, who was smiling widely but still had a bit of that 'did I do it right?' worry in his eyes.

"I will most definitely wear this on missions." Smiling slightly, Loki held his brother's gaze and gave him another piece of encouragement he hoped would be enough to get that anxiety out his eyes. "You even picked one of my favorites. You must have a better memory than I thought."

Thor visibly relaxed, his smile just as big but appearing much more natural. "I'm glad you like it."

There was a beat of silence, and then Tony clapped his hands together, getting to his feet and tucking his bilgesnipe head under one arm. "Alright! Now that Slowpoke finally caught up, it's movie time. I'm picking."

Steve sighed loudly. "No, Tony, you're not. Natasha already picked one."

"Well, we can watch that after we watch the one I want."

"Do you even have one in mind, or are you just arguing to be difficult?"

"I don't argue to be difficult, I argue because it's fun."

Clint groaned, dropping his head against the back of the couch. "Are we really doing this again?"

Bruce laughed softly, adjusting his glasses. "I might have to start using those calming oils right away, Natasha."

Loki smiled to himself and looked down at his uniform—because it couldn't really be considered clothing while he was living on Midgard—idly fingering the material and wondering for the millionth time how he wound up where he was.

Three and a half years ago, he had come to Earth with the intention of conquering and subjugating the entire human race, and the damage he caused was insurmountable. When he left, the hatred and bitterness he felt towards the lowly mortals who dared to oppose and defeat him was limitless, a burning, festering wound he nursed for two years while he sat in his prison cell. Then he had been dragged back the site of his greatest defeat, made to work like a peasant and listen to the sentimental propaganda of a creature he considered to be so far beneath him it couldn't be seen with the naked eye.

Then he met the unshakable composure and kindness of a super soldier who was just as confused by the world around him as Loki was. Then he saw the determination and heartfelt sincerity of a supposedly mindless beast who had been just as out of place as he was. Then he experienced the undying love and dedication of a brother who felt just as betrayed as he did. Then he met the insecurities and doubts of a handsome, billionaire genius who believed he was just as defined by his origins as Loki did. Then he met the care and protective instincts of an assassin who had just as much red in her leger as he did. Then he met the grace and humor of a sharpshooter who had just as much of a reason to hate as he did.

Then he became an Avenger.

It was like looking at a photograph of himself when he was younger, right after a long and hard battle, covered in blood and sporting a wide range of injuries. He could remember the pain, he could remember the disgusting layer of sweat and blood coating his body, and he could remember the ache in his lungs as he tried to catch his breath. But it all seemed so distant. He could remember it, but he couldn't make himself feel it.

In the same way, he thought back to his attack on New York. He had come out on the other side of dark tunnel that had once seemed endless, and as he stood in the light for the first time in years, he found himself unable to feel the darkness he had fed on for so long. He knew he had been bitter, and hateful, and lonely, and jealous, but as he sat watching two of Earth's Mightiest Heroes arguing like children while the rest of the Avengers bemoaned their immaturity, he couldn't feel anything but warmth.

"Okay, okay, let's compromise. We'll just watch both movies at the same time."

"How about we don't do that because that is a terrible idea."

"How is that a terrible idea?"

"We can't watch two movies at once, Tony!"

"I beg to differ."

"I beg you to grow up."

Loki smiled, looking to Bruce and shaking his head.

Bruce only laughed and rolled his eyes.

"Okay, how about we take a vote?"

"That's a great idea." Steve held a hand in the air. "Everyone in favor of watching Natasha's movie, raise your hand."

Every hand in the room went up, save for Tony's.

"I demand a revote!"

"Are you kidding me?"

Loki threw his head back and laughed.

* * *

"Quiet, _please, _Thor. Steve and I are trying to watch this film." Loki sipped his tea, letting out a sigh and giving the older god a sideways glance. "If you would sit down and shut your mouth for a moment or two, you might find yourself actually enjoying it."

Thor scowled, but the expression didn't last long. He sat down with a huff, crossing his arms over his chest and watching the little figures on the screen. However, it wasn't long before he was leaning forward in his seat, his brow creased with confusion. "Why are they singing?"

"Because it's a musical," Steve replied, never once taking his eyes off of the television set. "It's a story about an Austrian family and their nanny."

"Governess," Loki corrected.

"Right. Governess. It takes place during World War II, so I thought I would check it out. It's called _The Sound of Music._" Steve pursed his lips. "Now that I think about it, that might have something to do with the singing, too…"

Thor frowned, still thoroughly confused, but his curiosity had definitely been piqued.

"Just watch." Loki gestured towards the screen. "The singing becomes natural after a while."

Silence settled over the room as the movie once again became the center of attention, and Loki turned his head towards the window to watch the snow fall. He let out a small, contended sigh and smiled slightly, pleased with the contrast between the cold outside and the warm thrum he felt inside.

_Why do they want my staff?_

It had been a little over two months since they began trying to put H.Y.D.R.A.'s plan together, and that was the one part Loki couldn't get out of his head. He knew H.Y.D.R.A. had a bit of an obsession with the Tesseract, and he understood that his staff was the closest thing they could get while the physical Cube was on Asgard, but it wasn't the Tesseract. It didn't even serve the same function as the Tesseract.

_It's powered by the Mind Stone. What could they want with that? Mass hallucinations? Making the world forget they exist so they can sneak back into S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, no, there's nothing left of S.H.I.E.L.D. What could Selvig do with the staff? If he amplified it the same way he did the Tesseract, what could he do?_

"Why is the soldier being so cold to the girl? I was under the impression that they were lovers." Thor's voice cut through Loki's thoughts, drawing the younger god's attention back to the movie.

Steve shook his head in response to the question. "War changes people."

Loki frowned, tilting his head to the side. "Perhaps, but I would be more inclined to believe it has to do with the frivolity of youth. He's only seventeen—"

"Going on eighteen." Steve held up a finger.

Loki rolled his eyes at the reference. "Yes, yes, whatever. My point is that he is young, and his mind is pliable. That's what makes him such a good soldier and such a terrible companion. Now will the two of you please be quiet?"

Steve and Thor both grinned, but neither of them said another word until the movie came to an end, though Loki suspected they exchanged messages on their little, handheld devices more than once.

_He knows how the tiny social machines work, but he doesn't understand the elevator._

"Well." Steve stood up and cracked his back, turning off the television and tossing the remote back on the couch. "What do you want to do now?"

Loki shrugged. "Not another movie."

"We could play a board game," the soldier suggested.

Loki only rolled his eyes. "Captain, aren't the three of us a little old for games?"

Steve shook his head and started to leave the theater behind, apparently deciding that his suggestion had just become their next objective. He motioned for the two to follow him and walked over to the part of the family room that actually looked like a family room.

"Captain—"

Steve grabbed something from the bookshelf and whirled around with a huge smile on his face. "Settlers of Catan! It's my favorite game—well, of the ones I've tried since coming out of the ice, anyway."

Loki gave the man a skeptical look, reaching out to take the box and giving it a quick onceover. "It seems… trivial."

"More trivial than a movie?" Thor chuckled softly and reached out his hand, taking the box from his brother and giving it his own inspection. "It looks interesting. I think we should try it."

Steve threw his fists in the air. "Yes!"

Loki arched a brow and watched as the two men took out the contents of the box and began to set up the board. While the game itself didn't appeal to him, he couldn't remember a time when he had seen Steve so excited, and he was curious to know what it was about the Settlers of Catan that made the soldier so happy.

Unfortunately, the answer came very quickly. Steve taught them how to play the game, then they played a trial game to get familiar with it, and then the real gameplay began. Evidently, Steve was very good at this particular game, and as he continued to win every round with an exceptional lead, Loki realized the other heroes must have stopped playing with him when they realized his prowess, which would explain the soldier's enthusiasm.

_Wait… the other heroes… that means…_

Loki shot an accusing glare across the table. "Thor! You knew he was unbeatable, didn't you?" He turned his anger towards Steve and then back at Thor. "I'd wager you already knew how to play the game, too. You set me up. Both of you."

Thor and Steve maintained their neutrality for roughly five seconds, but then it was all they could do to not fall on the floor from uncontrollable bouts of laughter. Steve clutched his sides and doubled over, shaking his head and repeatedly trying to speak between gasps and fits of laughter.

Thor slapped his knee and threw his head back, bellowing to the ceiling. "Your—your face, Loki!" He lowered his head back down and tried to catch his breath, chest heaving. "You realized—what we did, and you—you just—" He attempted to mimic the expression in question, but he only wound up looking like an idiot and laughing harder.

Loki crossed his arms over his chest and kept on glaring, suppressing the tickle in his chest and focusing on keeping angry thoughts running through his head.

Steve managed to catch his breath for a moment and blurted out what he had been trying to tell them earlier. "Thor—Thor, you tried so hard not to smile, and you just—looked constipated!" He lost the end of the sentence to laughter, still holding his stomach.

Loki's lips twitched at that, but he bit down on the inside of his cheek to make it go away. He refused to join in their laughter, even if their statements were completely true and a little bit funny. He refused. He absolutely refused to laugh.

But then Steve snorted.

Steve realized what he had done immediately, and his hand flew up to cover his mouth, both him and Thor losing control all over again. For Loki, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. He broke into a wide smile and started chuckling. Then it started to escalate, growing in volume and steadily sucking the air out of his lungs.

Loki laughed.

He laughed because they were laughing. He laughed because it really was funny. He laughed because he hadn't laughed—hadn't really laughed—in _so _long, and it felt _so _good, and he didn't want that feeling to stop. He laughed and laughed until his cheeks were sore, his sides were aching, and his stomach was doing flips beneath his shaking hands.

They laughed together, like friends or family would, and when it finally faded away and died with a handful of sighs, they sat together in silence, still grinning from ear to ear.

"Whew." Thor wiped his eyes and shook his head. "I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard."

Steve chuckled and then winced. "Don't say anything funny. Ugh, I think I pulled something." But the smile never left his face. "I haven't laughed like this since before I went into the ice."

Loki leaned against the back of the couch, putting one leg up on the cushions and letting out a groan. "I have no idea when I last laughed like that. Though I do not think I intend to do it again for a while." He rubbed at his stomach absentmindedly, wondering if humans could actually hurt themselves by laughing too hard.

"Alright." Steve clapped his hands together. "Do you want to play something else?"

Loki sat up immediately, wagging a finger at the man who had dared to trick the trickster. "Oh, no. No, no, no. We are going to play this until I beat you."

"Loki, we can't sit here until the end of time." Steve gave the god a devilish little grin.

Loki returned it without hesitation. "Then I suppose it's a good thing it won't take that long." He looked at Thor, then, nodding in his general direction. "What about you? We could work together to foil his plans, you know."

Thor smiled. "Well, I don't suppose I can say no to that. I do love a good foiling."

Steve groaned.

Thor and Loki grinned.

_It looks like H.Y.D.R.A. will just have to wait._


	28. Chapter 28

"So, it's Saari and Mother and myself, and this huge—and I mean _huge—_ka'abalin is staring us down like we are the tastiest meal it's ever laid eyes on. Right? So Mother tells us to attack while she distracts it, and Saari goes around to the back of it, and Mother is in the front. Of course, I don't want to get in the way, so I start to back up and it sees me. Me, the only one without a plan or strategic position, and I am drawing a total blank, so I cup my hands around my mouth and scream—"

"—your mother wore Ymir's loincloth!"

"That's my line!"

Tony quirked a brow and watched as the quintet of odd foreigners dissolved into uncontrollable fits of laughter, leaning to his right with a bewildered mumble. "Did I miss something?"

"I think we all did," Bruce replied, sipping his coffee with a small smirk.

Tony frowned, taking a swig of his own, significantly stronger drink and looking at the occupied couches. Loki and Thor needed no explanation, and at this point, the inventor was pretty familiar with Jakodi. Even outside of the alliance negotiations, the second prince of Jotunheim made himself a somewhat regular fixture, spending the majority of his visits popping up in the most unusual of places and asking equally unusual questions of whoever happened to be there.

_But who is she?_

She—Princess Saari, if he recalled correctly—was Loki and Jakodi's younger sister, though Tony wasn't quite sure what possessed her to tag along on her brother's trip. She had more of a problem with Asgardians than Jakodi did, if the wary looks she kept throwing across the table were any indication, and her interaction with the others seemed forced at best.

Still, the Tower was in one piece and no one had declared war on anyone yet, so things seemed to be going pretty well.

"So…" Tony chugged a third of his scotch and swaggered over to the kitchen, plopping down on a barstool less than gracefully and beckoning Bruce to join him. "Frost Giant No. 2 has arrived to make peace—sort of. Thoughts?"

Bruce seated himself on Tony's right and took another sip of coffee. "I think it's fantastic. It shows that Jakodi is just as invested in repairing his family as Loki is, if not more. He's pulling his siblings into his visits and trying to repair some of the bridges that were burned or never built in the first place." He turned to watch the four aliens for a moment, and then he swiveled back around to face the bar. "On top of that, Jakodi and Saari are doing more than just repairing familial relationships. They're getting to know the heir to the Asgardian throne, and that could mean big things in the way of future peace between their realms."

Tony lifted a finger, belching loudly before offering his thought. "Ex-heir."

Bruce gave him an arched brow and a frown. "You really think Odin is going to let his kingdom fall out of the bloodline because of a disagreement? Thor will eventually be reinstated as the heir, and when he is, he'll already have a relationship with some of Jotunheim's royal family." He took another drink and gestured in the general direction of the group. "This is their chance to build a bridge between the two realms. It's not much, but it's a start."

Tony took a small sip of his drink, deeply regretting the fact that he had neglected to savor it early on. "They look like they're having fun."

"I think they are." Bruce swiveled on the barstool and gave Tony a light smirk. "You're not jealous, are you?"

Tony snorted. "Why would I be jealous?"

"Because you like being the smartest and funniest person Loki knows," the doctor replied.

"Yeah, well." Taking another swig, Tony emptied the bottle and put his head on the bar. "I still am. I'm the smartest and funniest person any of you know."

Bruce chuckled softly. "Whatever you say, Tony."

Tony sat up straight and weakly pounded on the countertop. "Name one person you know who is smarter and funnier than me. I dare you. I daaa…" He lost his words to a yawn and let his head drop back down to the marble. "Ugh. Just forget it."

"Come on." Bruce set his coffee aside and stood up, snapping his fingers and gesturing for the other to stand with him. "You need to go to bed."

Tony shook his head again. "This is just a drink break. I gotta go back to the lab. I'm so close. I just… I just made the mistake of sitting down." He began to tap and slide his fingers across the countertop, mumbling only semi-coherently as he traced out patterns and equations only he could see. "That H.Y.D.R.A. guy that blew himself up… there was no evidence of a physical bomb found anywhere in the wreckage… 'course that doesn't mean there wasn't one, but if he was an organic bomb… well, no, how would he control the detonation? He would have needed… a switch in his mouth or something… maybe like the cyanide pills they hide in their teeth? I was thinking something like Extremis, but they couldn't control when they detonated, so that's not it. But I'm close. I can feel it."

"Well, maybe if you sleep on it, you'll come up with a new way of looking at things." Bruce ducked his head beneath the inventor's arm and pulled him to his feet, wrapping his own arm around Tony's waist and walking him towards the door.

"But how do we detect it? We still have H.Y.D.R.A. prisoners in the building… what if they have bombs inside them? Maybe that was part of the plan… no, wait… no, no, never mind, those cells would be enough to contain bombs… probably…"

"Bed, Tony."

"Unless they were nuclear, but I dunno how they'd manage that."

Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted by the sound of something massive making solid contact with the roof. Tony startled, craning his head around to look up at the ceiling, Bruce's arm still curled around his chest.

"What was that?" the doctor muttered.

"Nuclear," the inventor whispered back.

Bruce cast a half-hearted glare in Tony's general direction and then turned to look at Thor, who was on his feet and already approaching the adjacent balcony. Saari was on his tail in an instant, following him by no more than a yard or two.

"Sister," Jakodi admonished gently. "I'm sure the Odinson can handle whatever awaits him out there."

Saari only glared over her shoulder, still marching after the blonde ex-prince. "If he should need backup, we should be there to offer it."

Loki leaned back and spread his arms over the back of the couch. "Trust me, Saari, Thor doesn't need any backup. He doesn't want it."

She stopped at that, turning on her heel and giving the trickster a sharp stare. "Only a fool would willingly go into battle without backup."

"Like I said, he doesn't want backup," Loki deadpanned.

Thor waved his hand out behind him, shaking his head. "It does not matter, for this is not a battle. It is a visitation."

That seemed to get Loki's attention, and straightened up immediately. "What do you mean?"

"I believe someone has used the Bifrost to land on the roof." Thor put one hand on the door to the balcony and stopped, looking over his shoulder with a wide smile. "You should all wait down here. If there's any trouble, it should not take you very long to figure it out."

Loki rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. "Please, have a little restraint. We did just finish fixing up the city in the immediate vicinity."

Thor grinned a little wider and opened the door, swinging his hammer and taking to the skies. Saari followed him out and turned around, shielding her eyes from the sun and trying to view the top of the building.

Jakodi heaved a sigh and shook his head. "Just like Mother…"

Loki gasped. "You mean Queen Leiknyrr doesn't like to be told what to do, either?"

"I know it's hard to believe, but that is, in fact, the case." Jakodi smiled, but it faded quickly, replaced with a look of reminiscence tapered with admiration and empathy. "When Rúni was killed in the battle against Nidavillir, we were all bereaved, but Saari was hurt in a different, deeper way. She is the oldest girl, after all, and there is a sense of… sisterhood that neither Rán nor myself can understand or provide. We felt responsible as brothers and sons and protectors of the family, but Saari felt responsible as a best friend and close confidant." He smiled again, but it was dampened with a sadness that wasn't there before. "If there is activity on Asgard, it means there could be danger for Jotunheim, and she simply can't let it go until she knows we're all safe."

Loki offered a smile of his own. "I am certain Thor doesn't mind. He is used to stubborn frost giants ignoring his orders, and he would certainly understand her need to protect her family."

Tony looked at Bruce, who could do nothing but stare back in confusion, and then raised his hand slightly. "Okay, but outside of her paranoia—"

"Tony," Bruce warned, clearly disapproving of the word choice.

"—what are the actual chances that something really bad is going on?"

No one had a chance to respond, as the subject of their conversation chose that particular moment to step back inside.

"Loki, Thor wants to see you." Her expression was entirely blank, shoulders squared and jaw set. "He is up on the roof."

Loki hesitated for a moment before offering a wordless nod and making his way down the hall to the elevator, his footsteps easily heard in the silence that followed.

Tony turned to Saari with a frown. "What's going on?" he asked, vaguely aware of the fact that he was still leaning on Bruce for support.

"I do not know." Saari crossed her arms over her chest, openly dissatisfied with her own lack of information. "Thor only asked for Loki. It seemed urgent."

"You worry too much, Saari." Jakodi admonished her gently. "Whatever it is, I am certain the Asgardians will take care of it. Let their matters be their matters."

Bruce cleared his throat then, gesturing upwards with the hand that wasn't holding Tony. "Things are a little strained between the royal family right now. I wouldn't be surprised if King Odin just wants to talk to them."

Saari gave him a long, hard stare. "Do not patronize me."

"We weren't, toots." Tony ignored the subsequent sigh from Bruce. "We were trying to encourage you. Don't take it out on us just because you have self-worth issues."

"Tony, that's enough." Bruce pressed a hand against the inventor's chest, a physical reminder that he needed to back off, and then looked apologetically to Saari. "I'm sorry about that. He's very tired and drunk."

"I'm half drunk."

Bruce gave him a hard pat on the chest but spoke as though there had been no interruption. "We understand you have your reasons, and we didn't mean to offend you."

Saari stared at the two mortals, caught somewhere between angry and confused with just a little bit of curiosity. If she had a thought, however, she never got to share it, because the elevator dinged and suddenly the only thing that mattered to any of them was finding out what had happened.

Loki entered the room and surveyed the awaiting faces, appearing somber, and yet somewhat amused by their eager silence. "Odin has succumbed to the Odinsleep," he explained simply. "Queen Fri—Mother says it is stronger than it has been in ages. We have no idea how long it will last."

Tony and Bruce exchanged a glance, equally disturbed by the news, and the former suddenly found he wasn't so tired and tipsy.

"What could have triggered something like that?" Jakodi mused aloud, rubbing his chin and staring intensely at the floor. "There is no threat of war or political unrest between Asgard and any other realm."

Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe he went into the Odinsleep because of those things. Seeing as Thor and Loki aren't around to take the throne, he probably put it off until he was certain Asgard would be alright without a king for a little while." His voice was calm, but Tony could feel his muscles tensing.

"Perhaps…" Saari mumbled, seeming unsure as to whether or not she should share her thoughts on the matter in full.

Once again, the building was struck, and Loki turned his gaze upwards despite the fact that there was a ceiling between him and his brother. "There he goes."

Loki inhaled deeply and then smiled, whatever composure he may have lost entirely regained. "Now, I believe this is Saari's first time on Midgard since America was constructed, yes?"

Saari was just as ready to change the subject as he was. "Indeed, it is."

"Then there is a mural in the city that I simply must show you." Loki smirked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "Come along, little snowflake, it's time for you to experience modern art."

Jakodi perked up at that. "Ooh! Yes, and then we can teach you all about the hippies and their superior hips."

Saari looked between the two men with a creased brow, arms crossed over her chest and lips pursed as the disbelief and suspicion radiating from her body became tangible.

Tony laughed, but it quickly dissolved into a yawn as he slumped against Bruce's shoulder. "Ugh… and there goes my second wind."

"Maybe that's because it's actually your fifty-second wind. How long have you been awake?" the scientist scolded.

"Don't judge me and my poor life choices." Tony yawned again, whatever adrenaline the alien commotion had created completely drained from his body. "Lead me to bed, Bruce."

Bruce chuckled and shook his head, resuming the task of walking Tony down the hall. He turned to look over his shoulder, calling out to the trio they were leaving behind. "Loki, take one of the track phones by the door, and call me if you need anything."

There were a few nods and murmurs of agreement, and then it was just the two of them, walking down the hall, Tony half hanging off of Bruce's body.

"Two weeks, by the way."

Bruce frowned. "What?"

"I've been awake for two weeks. Mostly awake." Tony yawned again, the very words bringing a new sensation of exhaustion over him. "I took a nap last Tuesday."

Bruce only sighed, shaking his head again and clucking in disapproval. "Tony, Tony, Tony… it's a wonder _you _don't need an Odinsleep."

"Don't you mean a Tonysleep?"

Bruce laughed. "Right. Tonysleep." Then, after a brief moment spent twisting his smile into a frown, he continued. "Do you think everything's alright up there?"

Tony nodded his head. "Yeah. The Odinsleep sounds like a pretty regular thing for them, and Thor is in a really good place to take care of Asgard. Plus, the rest of us are still here in the Tower, and we don't have any distractions. Things are good, and we'll be ready if they decide not to be…" He lost the end of his sentence to another series of yawns, his eyes slowly drifting shut and his head falling against the doctor's shoulder.

"Yeah." Bruce stopped outside Tony's door and grabbed the knob, pushing his way into the room. "You're probably right."

Tony let out a deep sigh as he was dropped unceremoniously onto his soft, warm, incredibly cartoon-cloud-like bed. "Of course I am." He sniffed, opening his mouth to say something else snarky and stuck-up, but his brain refused to make his tongue move.

_I'm gonna rest, 'cause I'm the best._

He laughed—whether in his sleep or in his head, he didn't know—and that was the last thing he remembered.

* * *

"You're worrying."

Loki startled slightly, pulled from his thoughts by a soft and familiar voice that had brought him comfort for more years than he cared to remember. Blinking, he looked across the table and let out a soft, defeated chuckle when he met the unwavering gaze of one ever-elegant Queen Frigga.

"Yes, I suppose I am," he admitted. "It's been two weeks, and Odin still isn't awake. I fear peace has made him complacent, and I fear what Asgard may have to pay as consequence."

Frigga smiled lightly, sipping her tea and offering the simple reply she knew he didn't want to hear. "Thor is taking care of things. Everything will be fine, and even if it won't be, what good will worrying do?"

Loki sighed and leaned back in his chair, swirling the contents of his cup and staring down into the transparent, greenish-yellow brew.

Smirking, the queen took his silence as an answer and lifted her cup to take another drink. "Besides, if your father were awake, I wouldn't be here with you. I certainly hope you aren't trying to say you want me to leave."

There was a second or two of resistance, and then Loki cracked a smile, shaking his head with a quiet laugh. "No, of course not. I was actually thinking of asking you to stay the night, if Anthony will allow it. I thought perhaps Jakodi could come for a visit, as well. I would like for you to meet him." He took a drink and narrowed his eyes slightly, tacking on a final comment. "And he is not my father. You know that."

Frigga gasped softly and stared, eyes wide with surprise and colored with a sparkle of mischief. "You didn't bite my head off right away. I am quite impressed."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Ha, ha. How witty you are."

She gave him a warm smile in return. "Truly, Loki, I would love to meet all of your brothers and sisters from Jotunheim. Someday, I shall convince your—Odin to meet them, as well."

"Thank you." He acknowledged her use of his name and nodded upward. "Do you think he would? Oh, speaking of which, I never got the chance to ask how the meetings went. How did Odin like Leiknyrr?"

"He didn't," she tittered, trying to hide her smile in her cup and failing. "She is extremely intelligent, sharp-tongued, and clever. She has an attitude far too similar to mine, with all of the same traits I have always used to drive him up a wall with madness."

Loki laughed aloud at that, shaking his head.

"But in all sincerity, he does respect her for her accomplishments and skilled leadership." Frigga paused, pursing her lips slightly. "I do not think he—or anyone, for that matter—expected her to be so prepared to take the throne, but it seems she has been planning her reign for a very long time."

"Indeed, she has." Loki stopped and tried to recall all that she told him about her early years. "She studied as much as she could, and she learned every language on her planet. Her father was a powerful sorcerer, and he taught her all he knew about magic and diplomacy, while her mother taught her about managing wealth and hand-to-hand combat."

Frigga nodded, her eyes filled with respect. "She is an incredible young woman, and I believe Jotunheim will do well in her hands."

Loki hummed in agreement but said no more, not entirely certain how much he wanted to talk about his biological mother to his adoptive one, and an easy silence fell between them. They sipped their tea in the quiet, and Loki began to drum his fingers on his thigh, wrestling with a question that had been bothering him since she arrived earlier that day.

"Que—Mother, I don't mean to accuse, but… why did it take you so long to come and visit me?"

"Because of the same reason you had no answer when I said Thor was taking care of things." Frigga reached across the table, silently requesting he place his jittery hand in hers. "I wasn't sure whether or not it was wise to leave him alone, but he has proven himself capable, and I felt safe getting away to come and see you."

Loki deemed her answer acceptable and placed his hand in hers, fingers still twitching slightly. "I see. He is doing well, then?"

Frigga nodded her head with a proud glimmer in her eyes, and Loki couldn't help but feel that old familiar jealousy welling up inside. _Thor's her favorite _and other similar thoughts flickered across the front of his mind before he could even process the fact that he was thinking them.

"I can tell he's been listening to you." She sipped her tea, ever-poised, unbothered by his sudden tension. "Partially because of his actions, and partially because he keeps looking at me and asking, 'What would Loki think of this?'"

Loki couldn't help but laugh a little at that, his negativity dissipating as he was once again reminded that things were different. "Well, if he's trying to think like me, then Asgard truly must be in good hands."

They laughed for a moment, and then Loki wet his lips, deciding a change of topic was due. "We spent an awful lot of time talking about me. How have you been, M—Mother?"

Frigga interlocked her fingers and rested her elbows on the table, setting her chin on the backs of her hands. "I have been doing quite well, thank you. Especially since my boys are getting along."

Loki smiled slightly, glanced away, and then met her eyes again. "Yes, I would imagine that puts you in good spirits."

"It makes me especially happy to see you smiling again, Loki. You have too handsome of a face to be disfiguring it with scowls all the time." Reaching out, the Queen of Asgard cupped his face in her hands and gently thumbed his cheek. "You are so much happier than you used to be. You found your mother, and your brothers and sisters, and your second home. You found a family here on Midgard, and you repaired your relationship with your brother." She blinked rapidly, a lone tear trailing down her cheek. "It took you so long, and it was so difficult for you, but you finally found—"

They froze in unison, her hands on his face and his fingers inches from her wrists. They stared at each other, the same silent question running through both of their eyes.

_Did you feel that?_

Loki jumped to his feet, rushing across the room and throwing the door open. He ran into the hall with Frigga on his heels, the green and tan and dark brown blurring together as they made a bee-line for the living room.

"Loki, it is getting stronger."

Loki nodded his head sharply. "I know."

They both startled again as something struck the building up above, the entire building reverberating from the impact. Loki looked to Frigga, but no more words passed between them, and soon they were leaving the hallway behind in exchange for the open living space.

"There has been a disturbance of some sort." Loki stopped speaking almost as abruptly as he had started, finding himself face to face with five solemn individuals, three white and two blue.

"Yeah," Clint grumbled, his voice thick with frustration. "We're kinda getting that."

Jakodi spied Frigga and bowed from the waist respectfully, while Saari ignored any and all sense of formalities to say, "Loki, if we were able to observe it from Jotunheim, and you were able to sense it from here…"

"It must be massive," the queen finished.

"Little more than massive, guys."

The group turned to see Tony and Bruce approaching, the latter holding a pen and pad as well as his StarkPhone in some sort of two-handed balancing act Loki couldn't quite describe.

"Little more than an it, too. More like its." Tony tapped his own StarkPhone and quickly pulled up a hologram of the globe. "They look like wormholes, practically carbon copies of the one Loki opened up a few years ago. So far, we have one over Jakarta and one over Tokyo, both of them spitting out hundreds of Chitauri on the cities below. Depending on where Jotunheim is in that giant tree thing, you could have picked up either one of those opening."

Bruce made a noise—something like a shout, but with his mouth closed around his pen, it came out as more of a grunt—and pointed to the tablet on his arm. "Sh'ao au'o."

Tony looked over the multitasker's shoulder. "We now have one in Sao Paulo."

Jakodi frowned. "We are not yet familiar with your global providences. What does this mean?"

Steve spoke up then, staring at the floor with a weary haze over his eyes. "They're going for a body count. Those are some of the most populated areas in the world. They want to kill as many people as possible." It was as if the very words weighed him down.

"Who are they?" Frigga asked, looking between the mortals in the hopes that one of them would be able to offer her an answer. "How many of them are there?"

"It's most likely H.Y.D.R.A." Natasha, already wearing her full uniform and armed to the teeth, folded her arms behind her back and shook her head. "They tried something like this about a year and a half ago. We stopped them, but they've been doing small things on and off since then. We thought they were in the beginning phases of a plan, but…" She heaved a sigh and let the train of thought die. "We have no idea how many of them there are."

Loki drummed his fingers on his forearms, pursing his lips. "Perhaps that was the reasoning behind their ragtag attacks. They wanted us to think they were few in number and largely dismantled." He rubbed his face and groaned, struck with a realization. "That's why they were looking for my staff. It had the power to shut down the portal last time. They wanted to make sure no one on our side would be able to get their hands on it."

"That would also explain why they were interested in Dr. Selvig." Natasha started to pace, chewing on her bottom lip and speaking a tone that was rapid but calm. "Even if he tried to forget how to build and maintain the portal, you can't un-learn something. You can only break the connections to it, and connections can be repaired."

Bruce pulled his pen out of his mouth and tucked it behind his ear. "That might also explain why they were getting close to the Berserker Staff. They knew the Avengers had the ability to stop the Chitauri before, and we've only gotten stronger since then, so they wanted something to make the Chitauri stronger, as well. That plan failed, and maybe that was when they decided to try opening multiple portals."

"Why Sao Paulo?" Clint stared down at his phone, his seemingly unrelated question catching the group off-guard. "If this website is right, Tokyo is the most populated city in the world, followed by Jakarta. Sau Paulo is eleventh on that list, so why the big jump?"

Steve stepped up to the globe and began to turn it with his finger, looking at the three red dots that marked the location of the three portals. "Clint, read off the counties on that list starting with the third most populated."

"Dehli—or New Dehli, I guess."

Steve tilted the globe slightly and highlighted the city. "They could be planning to go there once they have Jakarta under control. Next."

"Manilla, Philippines," the archer replied.

Steve highlighted that as well. "Even closer than New Dehli. They'll probably stop there first. Next."

"Seoul… something. I can't pronounce the last part. It's in South Korea."

"They could get there from Tokyo."

"Shanghai."

"China from South Korea. Not hard."

"Karachi."

"Pakistan?" Steve frowned, squinting at the map. "No, they could still go there once they're done with India. So far, it looks like the Indonesia to India gap is the only sizable one. Keep that in mind."

"Right." Clint nodded his head and looked back at his phone. "Beijing. That's another one in China, so that's pretty obvious. Then New York City."

There was an uncomfortable pause, but Steve only shook his head. "We'll come back to that one. Next."

"Guang… show? Foshan? I don't know. It's China." Clint gestured with his hands, indicating the location and its obvious meaning. "Then comes Sao Paulo. Right after that is Mexico City, which they could go for once Sau Paulo is under control."

Loki pointed at the cluster of lights around India. "They should have opened the third portal here. They would have a higher death count much faster if they didn't have to close that gap between the islands and the mainland."

"I know, but they didn't." Steve placed his hands on his hips and carefully examined the globe in front of him. "They opened one in Sao Paulo, and they've had a long time to plan this, so there has to be a reason why."

"I think they're trying to keep us separated." Loki gestured to the two portals furthest away from them. "Thor and Iron Man can fly, and I can teleport. Our ability to travel quickly between battlefields is a big disadvantage for them. They couldn't have known that Thor wouldn't be here when they attacked, so they put the portals further apart for the sake of gaining that particular advantage while giving up the speed and efficiency they might have had if the portals were closer together."

Tony shook his head in disgust, spinning the globe with a deceptively idle hand. "They gave us an obstacle we won't even try to overcome. They knew we wouldn't pick and choose who to save based on convenience—that we would try to save everyone—and they manipulated that to their advantage."

Frigga pointed over her shoulder, already taking several steps towards the exit. "Should I return home and send Thor here?"

Loki shook his head immediately, not giving any of the Avengers a chance to reply. "No. Thor's first priority is Asgard, and he needs to stay there. You can, however, go to Jotunheim and invoke the peace treaty we arranged."

"There's one other thing you could do, too." Tony didn't look away from the globe as he spoke, already pulling up flight patterns to find the fastest routes. "If you could unlock Loki's magic, that would be superb. We're going to need all the extra firepower we can get."

Loki took a moment to look at the other Avengers, gauging their reactions to Tony's suggestion, but it seemed they were all in agreement. So, after casting a brief smile in their direction, he turned to face his mother with an expectant look.

Frigga chewed on her lip, worry flickering across her features. "How much have you been using your magic?"

"Enough," he assured her, a charming smile parting his lips. "It will be exhausting, but it will be worth it in the long run. I have four seals unlocked already, so it won't be nearly as dramatic as it was the last time."

There was another split-second of hesitation, and then Frigga reached out and took his hands. Shades of gold and white began to shine in between their skin, and despite the overwhelming joy he felt at the sensation of his magic flying through his veins, he turned his attention to the group of individuals behind him.

Steve was still trying to get his bearings and lead the slightly malformed team of superheroes. "Jakodi, Saari, thank you for sharing information with us. If you could return to tell us of any new developments on your end…" He trailed off as Saari began to laugh.

"Return? We are not leaving, soldier boy, we came to fight." Saari patted the blades hanging from her hips. "Jotunheim has plenty of princes and princesses. We are here to help, not to watch from the sidelines."

Jakodi nodded and smiled at Earth's Mightiest Heroes. "I would have put it a little more tactfully and with less mocking laughter, but my sister is right. If we only wanted to give you information, we would have sent a messenger. We came prepared for battle."

There was a beat of silence, and then Steve replied, "Thank you. I know the details of the treaty are still fuzzy, and you could easily get out of fighting with us and for us. You're choosing not to, and I thank you for that."

Neither of the indigo individuals said anything, though faint smiles still lingered on their lips.

"Well, this is all wonderful with the peace and cooperation and what not, but we need to get back on point." Tony tapped the floating globe, the three lights pulsing red. "If we're all fighting, then there are eight of us and three portals. How do we—"

"There." Frigga released Loki's hands and gave him a questioning look, silently asking whether or not he felt alright.

"Perfect, thank you. You will return home and speak with Queen Leiknyrr regarding the treaty, correct?" Loki rubbed his wrists idly, a dull ache settling in the joints. "Avengers, is there anything else we might need?"

Clint snorted. "Thor."

Loki glared. "Barton."

"Aw, geeze, learn to take a joke." Clint waved it off. "I don't think we need anything other than a plan. Tony, what were you saying?"

Frigga pulled Loki's attention away from the group just long enough to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek. "Please, be careful."

"I will," he replied, giving her yet another reassuring smile.

Frigga nodded, looking at him just a moment more before she turned and ran for the balcony. Loki watched her leave and then turned back to his comrades, trying to pick up what information he might have missed.

"Come on, people." Clint snapped his fingers, looking around the group and urging them to get a move on. "We have eight people, so that's—

"—two per site." Bruce held up the tablet in his hands, displaying the screen to the rest of the team. "Portal number four just opened up. New York City."

Steve didn't miss a beat, pointing to members of the team in turn and giving them their directives. "Dr. Banner, you stay here and monitor the news and government activity. Do whatever you can to find a way to shut these things down. Loki, you go to New York City and stay in constant contact with Bruce. Understand that a Code Green is on the table, as much as we might not like it, and you'll have to make the calls by ear. Jakodi and Saari, I assume you two fight well together, and you have access to the Bifrost, so I'm sending both of you to Jakarta. H.Y.D.R.A. will no doubt see the Bifrost activity, but they know nothing about you or your people, so you shouldn't lose anything except the element of surprise. Iron Man, you and I will travel with them through the Bifrost and fly to Tokyo from Jakarta to cut out flight time. Hawkeye and Black Widow, you two grab the jet and hit Sao Paulo. Everyone, if you manage to close your portal, go to the portal closest to you immediately. We can communicate the details over radio en route to our designated locations. Avengers, Assemble!"

Like a well-oiled machine, the circle split and approached the quickest route to their destinations. Jakodi and Saari ran for the elevator, making their way up to the roof where they could utilize the Bifrost. Tony ran to his lab to get his suit, and Steve headed towards his bedroom for a similar purpose. Clint and Natasha were already gone, the professionals that they were, and Loki wondered how it was possible that they moved so quickly.

"You ready for this Loki?"

"But of course," the trickster replied. "In fact, were I native to this realm, I might say I was born ready, or something along those lines."

Bruce gave a quick nod and put all of his materials down on the bar, significantly more unsettled than his partner. "Good. I have to run to the lab and grab some equipment, but I'll get set up here and let you know if I find anything. I might have questions—Jarvis, please pull up at least four news channels on the big screen—so keep in touch." He took a few steps backwards, still talking, and then turned to jog down the hall towards the elevator, calling out over his shoulder. "You should wear your outfit and stock up on weapons, and don't forget your earpiece!"

"I won't, so stop your fussing."

Grinning, Loki ran past the now occupied lift and made his way down the hall to his room. _I'll need as many knives as possible, preferably lightweight, and at least two guns and a bag of ammo. _He rounded a corner, feeling the rush of adrenaline in his veins and silently wondering whether or not it was acceptable for him to be excited.

Focused, determined, overwhelmed, and terrified.

But just a little bit excited.

_I'll ask Dr. Banner when this is all over. Assuming, of course, that we are both alive when this is all over._

Just a tiny little bit excited.

* * *

"I'm not saying we were slighted on purpose, I'm just saying it wasn't a good idea to send the two most non-super superheroes to the same location alone." Clint unleashed another volley of arrows, the tips combusting on impact and raining shrapnel down from above.

Natasha pressed her back against his, a gun in each hand and blood on her lip. "Would it really have made a difference? We could barely handle one portal when all six of us were together."

Clint shrugged his shoulders, already panting softly from the blend of exertion and adrenaline. "I'm just saying, you've got a robot weapon and super-soldier, frost giants from another planet, a magician and an indestructible monster, and two people who really like shooting things. Clearly, something was—"

Natasha ducked down just as Clint leaned back, the two managing to slide beneath the hovercraft of one of the Chitauri minions and tumble away from each other in opposite directions.

"Pay attention to your earpiece. Meet up in ten!" Natasha took off running, firing to both her left and right and trying to get out of the open.

Clint threw a positive response over his shoulder, something like a cross between a yeah and an okay, and ran the other way. He dove into the nearest alley, narrowly avoiding some sort of exploding alien projectile, and then he was running again, trying to navigate his way through the city streets while taking out as many of the wrinkled blue warriors as he could.

_I should have stayed in bed today._

"Tony, please tell me things are looking better where you are," the archer said, holding a hand to his ear and waiting for a reply.

"We're still flying, but the news reports aren't looking good."

Clint jumped up and grabbed the bottom rung of a fire escape ladder, clambering up the metal frame with an agility that looked far easier than it actually was. "How did we get here before you got to Tokyo?"

"You took the Aven-jet, which has arc reactor technology powering its thrusters. You shaved off at least three hours of flight time with that. Meanwhile, I'm stuck flying in my suit but trying not to use all of my power so I actually have weapons when I get to Tokyo. We're about… half an hour away now, and we can already see the swarms of Chitauri."

"You should have sent the frost giants over there." Clint jumped up and grabbed a windowpane, pulling himself up onto the ledge and taking a moment to fire an exploding arrow before going up another floor. "They had the Bifrost."

"They didn't understand a city mural. How are they going to understand the city of Tokyo?"

Rolling onto the roof, Clint landed on his back and unleashed another cluster into the sky. "You can't fault them for not understanding modern art, Tony. _I _don't understand modern art."

"My point is, we wanted to keep them as much in their element as possible, and at least Jakarta has trees."

"Right, because Jotunheim totally has those." Clint continued to the edge of the roof and dropped down, disappearing into the alleyway just before a Leviathan flew overhead. "Why not send Loki, then?"

"Bruce needs to stay in Manhattan, and we wanted Loki close by. If things go sour, and I'm really hoping they don't, but if they do, Loki might actually stand a chance of containing the Hulk. Look, we can talk about this later. Right now, tell me how things are going."

"Well, we aren't dead yet." Clint took a deep breath and rolled over again, scrambling through the closest doorway and taking a moment to orient himself. "They're everywhere, Tony. Please tell me you've got some brilliant idea to help us beat these things."

"Not yet, but Bruce is on the other line. We're working as fast as we can. I'm gonna get back on with him and see if he's made any progress, but first, what time is it?"

"What?"

"We just gained a lot of hours in literal minutes. We're both pretty disoriented."

Clint grunted and pushed himself away from the wall, grabbing his phone from his pocket and pulling up the world clock. "It's… 5:32 AM here, 4:32 AM back home, and—geeze, it's 3:32 PM where the smurfs are and 5:32 PM where you are."

"I'm sorry I asked."

Clint shoved his phone back into his pocket and started moving towards a nearby, broken window. "Keeping us separated so we can't fight as a team is pretty obvious, but I don't think we were prepared for the long flights and massive changes in time and climate."

"It also means the Chitauri have been invading Tokyo for six and a half hours, and we aren't even there yet. How are we sup—hold on, Bruce's line is beeping at me. Over and out."

Clint sighed and shook his head, taking a quick look around before lining up an arrow and letting it fly.

_Just a little bit slighted._

* * *

"You've got to have better news than that."

Bruce removed his glasses and rubbed the eyes beneath them, shaking his head and holding the spectacles up in a helpless gesture. "I don't know what you want me to tell you, Tony. They don't have a physical device holding any of the portals open. This is different than the one from the Battle of New York."

"There has to be something. Did you check the energy signatures? If we could trace something back—"

"Yes, yes, I checked everything. I've been working on this for almost seven hours, I swear, I checked everything. Everything about the portals is the same as the one from the Battle of New York—the energy signatures, the atmosphere coming through, the size, the color, the species on the other side, even the _constellations_ on the other side—but they don't have anything sustaining them." Bruce ran both hands through his hair and pulled up another holographic screen. "Everything is..."

"…the same…" Tony echoed he thoughts of his fellow scientist. "Bruce—"

"I'm on it. I'll call you back when I know more." Bruce threw the screen that enabled him to communicate with Tony off to the side and pulled up another. "Loki, can you hear me?"

"What can I do for you, Dr. Banner?" the god replied, sounding out of breath.

"Explain Yggdrasil." Bruce swiped the table clean, opening five new windows and pulling up the readings from a different portal on each screen. "Quick and simple, if you can."

There was silence on the line, and then a somewhat annoyed but mostly incredulous voice came through the wires. "You would like me to explain one of the universe's greatest wonders in a quick and simple way?"

"You know, you could already be explaining it." Bruce dropped himself into a swivel chair, the momentum carrying him down the length of the marble tabletop.

Loki sighed. "Yggdrasil is the tree of the universe. It connects the Nine Realms in this particular part of the universe, at the center of which is Midgard. It is more of an energy flow than anything—"

"So, when you say it's like a tree, it has one large origin at the base and then breaks off into branches. Right?" Bruce grabbed his coffee mug and took a drink, opening a sixth window and beginning to draw with his index finger.

"Yes, I suppose so."

"That kind of energy flow wouldn't be that hard to replicate, right? What makes Yggdrasil so unique is that it is self-sustaining and runs multiple wormholes through multiple realms." Bruce slid back down the table, looking at the portal comparisons again. "If someone wanted a portal to connect just two realms, they could split the energy streams apart and have them form separate pathways from one source."

"Theoretically, one could do that, yes. At least on Asgard, I know the technology exists. I cannot vouch for the other realms." There was a pause, and then Loki returned, out of breath but seemingly unharmed. "What are you trying to accomplish Dr. Banner?"

"I've been looking at this all wrong." Bruce shook his head, transferring the speech window to his StarkPhone and running down the hall towards Tony's workshop. "I was so focused on comparing these portals to the one from the Battle of New York that I missed the bigger picture. If all of them are identical to my control portal, then all of them are identical to _each other. _It doesn't tell us how to close the portals, but it does tell us our enemies are all coming from the same place. H.Y.D.R.A. set up multiple portals to keep us separated, but if we can send our weapons through the portal to the other side, like Tony did with the nuke in the Battle of New York, we'll actually be fighting together. If we can cut off the flow of Chitauri at the root—"

"I see where you're going with this. I will alter my attack patterns accordingly, I assume you'll let the others know, and you will keep working on a way to shut the portals down?"

Bruce let out a breathy laugh and wiped the sweat from his brow, typing in a passcode and darting across the workshop to one of Tony's more recent inventions. "I'm going to try and send a camera through. Whatever is maintaining the portals has to be on the other side somewhere, and that's our only chance. If you see anything odd while you're out there, please let me know. I need new information to work with.

"I will do my best."

"Thanks. Over and out."

"What?"

Bruce stopped halfway to hanging up. "Over and out. It just means we're done talking and can hang up now."

Loki gave a pregnant pause. "Why do you not just say goodbye?"

"I… don't know, it's just a term we use... it's just…" Bruce shook his head. "I'll explain later. Goodbye, Loki."

"Goodbye, you odd little man."

The call ended, and Bruce tossed his phone to the side, picking up one of the drones Tony had designed to help Clint and Natasha with their espionage missions. It was only a prototype, but they really didn't have a lot of options, so Bruce was left to hook up the cameras and hope that was enough.

_Tony said he lost all power after flying a certain distance away from the portal. I'll have to be careful not to go in too far._ He turned it over and flipped a panel open, typing in a few commands before snapping it shut again. _Let's hope this prototype is just as impressive as all of your other prototypes, Tony._

* * *

Jakodi bit his lip, reaching out his arms before quickly drawing them back again, torn between what he wanted to do and what he was physically capable of. He looked down at the jacket in his hands, twisting his lips and considering the thickness of the fabric.

"Jakodi, I need you out here! What are you doing?"

Turning his head to look over his shoulder, Jakodi watched his sister half stumble half roll into the building and swing around through the doorframe.

"It's a baby," was all he said, hands still clutching the bloody jacket. "Its mother and father are dead, and I don't know if I can pick it up."

Saari pressed her back against the wall and poked her head through the doorway, pulling it back in and letting out a heavy sigh. "Jakodi, we don't have time for this. Just pick it up—you haven't hurt anyone yet."

"But it is only an infant, and I am going to be holding it for a long time." Jakodi bit down on his lip once more, gnawing on the icy flesh and contemplating the wailing creature beneath him. "Humans are so fragile, and just—just look at it, Saari. It's so frail and tiny and thin."

Sighing, the princess pulled her wild black locks back into a knotted mess and crawled across the room. "Let me see."

Jakodi moved to the side just enough for her to see the crying child, still hovering over it in an attempt to protect it from the destruction raining down from above. "Careful."

Saari cast him a brief glare and pulled a knife from her waistband, cutting through the fabric of her dress and placing it on top of the baby. She then reached over and cut a large piece from his loincloth, placing that on top before following it up with the jacket in Jakodi's hands and the shirts from both of the child's parents.

"It's as wrapped as it can be. Now, get it to safety, and then get back here and _help me fight, _you sentimental idiot."

Jakodi pulled the baby into his arms and nodded in response to his sister's request, jumping to his feet and taking a quick survey of the skies before running in the opposite direction of the portal. Debris fell from the sky, biting at his heels and dropping down in front of him simultaneously. He dove and danced through the minefield, looking down as often as he could to see if the cold was seeping through the fabric to the child inside.

"Excuse me, miss!" Jakodi jumped over a car and jogged towards the fleeing civilian. "Please, I found a baby. Could you—?"

He winced at the shrill, ear-splitting scream and stopped on a dime, not wanting to startle her further. _I suppose they're a little disturbed by blue skin at the moment._

_"Sini!"_

Jakodi turned at the sudden voice, a short, dark-haired woman appearing in front of him.

_"Di sini, biarkan aku membawanya." _She reached into Jakodi's arms and plied the baby from his grasp, holding it close to herself and nodding in the general direction of portal. _"Terima kasih."_

Jakodi wasn't entirely sure what she had said, but she seemed capable of caring for the baby, so he offered her a quick smile and a word of thanks before turning and running back towards the chaos.

Because that's what it was. Raw chaos, with no underlying manipulation or systematic dismantling of order, just chaos. Structures he didn't understand collapsing beneath the weight of overhead attacks, people screaming in languages he couldn't translate, his body trying to sweat under the setting sun only to have the perspiration freeze on his skin.

He could only hope the reason he and his sister were having such a difficult time was because they were foreigners, and not because the seemingly endless barrage of aliens was becoming too much to handle; not because the odds were stacked against them and they were outnumbered at least ten thousand to one.

_I certainly hope Loki is having better luck than we are. _Jakodi pitched to the right, narrowly avoiding a wayward telephone pole. _Rather, I hope all of the Avengers are having better luck than we are._

* * *

_I certainly hope the others are having better luck than I am._

Loki hit his back and rolled, knees scraping against the coarse rooftop as he quickly, albeit sloppily, got to his feet and prepared another attack. Green sparks flew from his fingertips, dancing through the air in intricate swirls and patterns before locking on to their targets and surging, fast and straight, into the Chitauri hovercrafts below.

"Dr. Banner, if I am perfectly honest—" He jumped from the rooftop and grabbed on to the windowsill as he fell, tumbling into the building and leaning back against the wall. "I don't know how much longer I can do this."

"…ly one fighting solo. I… ing a Code Green, if at… eally need my help, I ca…"

Loki shook his head, chest heaving as he panted, the deafening sounds of destruction pounding against his eardrums. "I can't hear you. If you can hear me, know that I trust your judgement—" he stopped to grab a few gulps of air, "—and I will hold nothing against you if you choose not to involve the Hulk in this fight."

"…at I said, be… ould be our… if you…"

Loki shook his head again, grabbing the damaged earpiece and dropping it to the ground. He rubbed at the cartilage, vaguely aware of a large cut leaving trails of blood in the shell.

_It would be incredibly ironic if I died trying to save these people from the very army I intended to conquer them with. _Loki grunted, pulling himself to his feet and staring down at his hands. _At this point, I can't even tell what pain is from injuries and what pain is from excessive use of magic._

Turning around, Loki put one foot on the windowsill and grabbed onto the wall, looking down, left, right, up, and back down again. There were so many—so, so many—and they didn't seem to have any formal attack plan. He didn't know how to intercept them, or where to aim his strongest attacks in order to kill the largest possible amount. It was just chaos.

_Organized chaos is one thing. I can handle chaos when someone, somewhere is pulling the strings, but this is… savagery. No method to the madness, no scheme behind the insanity, no plan beneath the swarming bodies and firing weapons._

Loki continued to stare, watching as subtle waves of green light began travelling over his hands and fingers. He couldn't get on top of the fight by using magic in small increments, and if he kept putting off a larger attack, he eventually wouldn't have enough energy to do anything but small ones.

There was an option on the table, of course, but he had been trying to avoid making that particular move. He understood the human equivalent, an EMP, could do massive amounts of damage to human infrastructures. But he was running out of options, and if he could cut the power to the Chitauri hovercrafts and the defense systems keeping the Leviathans shielded from tip to tail, then he might have a chance. And if he had a chance, he had to try.

_Firetrucks, ambulances, and police vehicles won't be able to run. Hospitals will lose power. The Red Cross won't have the necessary equipment. No one will be able to send a call for help or contact their loved ones. People trying to travel away from the danger will be stopped in their tracks._

Loki wet his lips, watching the light pulse across his skin, feeling the thrum deep in his bones. _If I do this, everyone on life support will die. Patients who are hooked up to important medicine and machinery will die. If any airplanes stray into the vicinity, they will crash, and every single person on board will die. Many will die from their wounds, or from heat exhaustion, or because they're trapped in the rubble, or because they can't get away fast enough._

He tilted his head back and stared up at the black hole, the frayed edges of the early morning sky, and the star-speckled nebulas beyond. _But if I don't do this, everyone will die, and the Chitauri will be free to spread that death across the rest of the state, and then the country, and then… then it won't matter, because we can't stop them once they have that much control._

Glancing over his shoulder, he stared at the earpiece on the ground and wished more in that moment than ever before that it would work. He wished he could ask Bruce for advice and know he was receiving an honest, good-hearted answer in return. Instead, he was alone, left to his own twisted sense of right and wrong, a moral compass so warped he was afraid to trust it.

Loki set his jaw and raised his hands, curling his ring and index fingers towards himself as the energy began to swell. _I suppose it's up to me to be a real Avenger and make the hard call. _The thought brought a bittersweet smile to his face, and he continued to play it over in his head as the energy built up in his hands, his forearms, his entire body.

_I'm doing what needs to be done. I'm making the hard call. I'm doing what needs to be done. They'll understand that. I'm doing what needs to be done. _

Loki squinted at the now blinding light on his hands, the amount of power in his body reaching its peak and pushing from the inside in an attempt to escape its confinement.

_I'm doing what needs to be done._

He snapped his wrists and spread his fingers, watching in an indescribable mix of pride and horror as New York City went dark. Chitauri fell from the sky by the dozens, their corpses and crafts crashing onto the streets and shattering outward like glass plates on a polished floor.

Loki shook himself and turned around, jumping up and grabbing the edge of the rooftop he had sought sanctuary from just minutes before. Boots struck the cement, and he took off running, focused on one thing and one thing only.

_One, two, three, plus four makes seven, another two…_

Loki vaulted from the edge of the building and swung his arms in wide arcs, trying to keep his center of balance as he travelled through the air to the next rooftop in the lineup. He hit the ground hard and tucked his shoulder, falling head over heels but transitioning into a somersault that got him upright and running again.

_Twelve, three is fifteen, then two more…_

His lungs ached, but he didn't stop, burying the sensation among the flood of exhaustion that was slowly beginning to overtake his body. He was grateful—really, he was—that he had been using his magic on a fairly regular basis, which prevented such large attacks from knocking him on his backside. But it still ran him ragged in half the time it should have, and he didn't know how many offensive moves he had left.

_Twenty-one, and now there's a bit of a break in the flow. Perfect._

Loki left behind another rooftop and landed on the one he had been running for, the one positioned directly beneath the gaping hole in the sky. He wasted no time in unsheathing two handfuls of knives and coating them in just enough magic to ensure they would hit their targets without fail.

_Twenty-one minus six is fifteen, two more through the portal makes seventeen—_he threw two more handfuls—_minus six makes eleven, four through the portal puts us back at fifteen._

He kept count as best as he could, whipping blade after blade into the fray until they were gone. Then he grabbed whatever was on hand, trying to conserve as much magic as possible by enhancing the objects he found instead of creating projectiles from pure energy. He moved as quickly as he could, never keeping his eyes on a target long enough to see whether or not they were hit. He had enough faith in his skills to believe he was successful in his attacks, and even if he wasn't, what difference did it make? There was no rank to destroy, just swarms of faceless creatures that needed to be annihilated at all costs. If he wound up attacking the same one twice, it wouldn't matter, as long as they all wound up dead.

_My count will be off, but—minus eight makes twenty-two, and another four—no, another eight—no, twelve._

Loki staggered backwards, feeling as though he had just been struck in the center of his chest with a sledgehammer. The lead pipe he had been holding clattered to the ground, joined shortly by the magician's aching knees.

_I can't. I can't do it._

There wasn't a single ounce of magic left in him, and his body had spent so much jumping from rooftops and swinging through windows for hours without respite. Eight, if he wasn't mistaken. Evidently, eight hours was his limit, and he had hit it like a brick wall.

_I… I'm sorry, Bruce._

Grunting, he dropped onto his side, every fiber of his being refusing to go on. He ached, a dull pain spread over his body and sinking deep into his very core. He hadn't eaten. He hadn't slept. He hadn't so much as sat down since the attack began, and he just couldn't move another inch.

_I'm sorry, everyone._

He apologized with the assumption that they were all still alive, which he quickly realized was an incredibly massive assumption on his part.

_I'm so sorry._

He closed his eyes, fingers twitching against the pipe in a weak attempt at maybe, just maybe, throwing one more attack before the fatigue struck him down. It was pointless. He could touch it, but he couldn't make his fingers curl, couldn't force his muscles to form a grip.

"Do you really think this is the time for a nap, little brother?"

Loki's eyes snapped open, his body going rigid at the familiar voice and jest. "Thor?"

The thunder god crouched down in front of him, encasing his shoulder in a heavy hand. "Aye. You are looking worse for the wear, my friend."

Loki slapped the hand away, weakly pounding a fist on the gravel and staring at the older got with anger flashing in his eyes. "I specifically told Mother you needed to stay in Asgard. Thor, you idiot, what will happen while you are away? What if the Chitauri, or worse yet, Thanos, decide to attack Asgard while it is vulnerable? What if—"

Thor's boisterous laughter cut him off, the god's eyes shut tight as he threw his head back, chortling at the smoky skies. "Loki." He shook his head, still smiling as he scooped the younger male into his arms and began to stand. "What kind of king does not lead his troops into battle?"

Loki stared, too stupefied to formulate any sort of coherent reply.

Thor didn't seem to mind it, though. He stepped onto the edge of the roof and looked down at the world below, still grinning with an all-too-familiar sparkle in his eyes.

Loki turned his own head, thinking for a moment that he wouldn't be able to see what which was beneath him, but he was quickly proven wrong. "Odin's beard…" he whispered, his jaw going slack.

Shades of gold and silver lined the streets of New York City, the slowly rising sun catching the metal as it moved and shifted, shining bright lights into the sky like a beacon, almost as if to let the whole world know things were getting brighter in more ways than one.

Loki didn't know how many Chitauri had come through the portal in his daze, and he didn't know how much damage his electrical spell had caused, and he didn't know where any of the Avengers were or whether or not they were alive. But he did know one thing.

Hundreds of Asgardian warriors had flooded the streets of New York City, each and every one armed to the teeth and prepared to claim victory no matter the cost.

"You fought valiantly, Brother. More valiantly than I ever thought you could or would, but I cannot let you have all of the fun." Thor smiled down at him, lightly squeezing the body in his arms. "Rest. I will lead these men into battle, while Sif leads another group in the city of Tokyo. Jotunheim is sending aid to Jakarta and the Paulo of Sao."

Loki blinked again, and then he gave a hesitant ghost of a smile. "I'm not hallucinating, am I?"

Thor laughed again, deep and hearty, in that incredibly innocuous way that only Thor could.

_This is real. Asgard and Jotunheim are coming to Midgard's aid. We have a chance to win this. We actually have a chance._

"I will give orders to my men, and then I will fly you to Manhattan. You can assist Dr. Banner while resting your body and regaining your strength." Thor gave a cheeky smile. "Let me take care of you for once, Loki."

_We have a chance. Thor is here, he brought two armies—two massive armies. We have a chance. We might actually win. We can—I can—I'm—_

"Rest, Loki."

_—safe._

Loki fell headlong into the darkness.


	29. Chapter 29

Tony didn't know what the source of the cracking noise was, but there was a very big part of him that hoped it was something in his armor breaking. Unfortunately, the sharp pain that suddenly cut into his right side made him inclined to think it was a rib that had broken, not a rod or bracket. Still, there was a chance—

—no, there wasn't.

"Tony, are you alright?"

"Peachy." Tony pushed against the ground and forced himself back onto his feet, swaying slightly before getting his bearings and taking off towards the portal. "How are things looking on the ground?"

"Better," came the breathy reply. "Most of the Chitauri structures have been destroyed, and there aren't as many flying overhead now." There was a break in conversation, the distinct sounds of a fistfight coming from the other end. "Thank God the Asgardians showed up."

"Wouldn't that be thank gods?"

"No, but you get points for trying."

Tony snorted, flying in a tight circle and grunting at the subsequent pressure on his ribs. He shook it off, extending his hands out in front of him and firing his repulsors into the throngs of warriors coming down through the portal.

"Tony, are you sure you're alright?"

"Fine, Steve." Tony grit his teeth, dropping down a few feet to avoid being decapitated by a hovercraft and firing his beams again. "Do we know anything about New York City?"

"Everything is still black, so other than reports from outside observers, we don't know much of anything." Pause. "That didn't happen anywhere else. You realize—"

"Yeah. Loki." Tony flew to the right, moving in a broader circle and firing inwards in an attempt to bottleneck the opening. "You think it was a mistake to let him have his magic?"

"No, but I'm worried about what he's up against. I thought because it was the most recent portal, it was the one we could afford to have just one person fighting." There was another pause, this time due to fighting. Or at least, he assumed shattering glass and alien screeches weren't a regular part of Steve's phone calls. "Now, I'm not sure."

"You can't put that on yourself, Cap. You trusted your gut and did the best you could with what you had. If he had to set off an EMP or do some weird voodoo thing to stay on top of things, then that's what he had to do." Tony stopped to catch his breath, unnerved by the steady throb in his torso. "Besides, according to Sif, Thor is there now. Loki is in good hands, and so is New York City. Trust them, trust yourself, and focus on Tokyo."

Steve gave a breathy laugh, panting heavily in between phrases. "Thanks. Just keep that in mind—when you try to blame yourself—for not figuring out H.Y.D.R.A.'s plan sooner." There was another laugh followed by a moan. "Tony, how do we close these things?"

"I don't know. I can only run so many calculations in my head. Bruce said we all have to send attacks into the portal. I think with Asgard on our side, we actually have a chance of getting close enough to do that."

"But how do we _close _them?"

"I just said I don't—"

Pain blossomed through his side anew as the Iron Man suit was clipped by a speeding Chitauri hovercraft. Tony spiraled down, head over heels over head again, everything beyond his faceplate distorting into abstract splotches of color.

"Tony!"

There was a crash, there was pain, and then everything went black.

* * *

Bruce glanced up from his work just long enough to ensure Loki was still breathing and then returned his attention to the screen on the countertop, trying to figure out what he was looking at. It was mostly void, partially stars, and swarming with hundreds of thousands of Chitauri that had yet to pass through the portal.

_There has to be some sort of device holding the portals open from this side. There has to be something we can attack. There has to be. _But the longer he flew the small, robotic camera around the open space, the more he felt inclined to believe he had miscalculated. _But that would mean it only took them two years to develop a self-sustaining portal, and if they have that kind of advanced technology, what on Earth would they need H.Y.D.R.A. for? _

"Mmm… Thor…?"

Bruce looked up again, pushing his glasses up the length of his nose and giving the trickster a weak, fleeting smile. "You're awake." He immediately dropped his gaze back down to his work, fingers sliding around on one of the panels as he controlled the camera. "Thor is in New York City. You are under strict orders not to fight."

Loki sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes and looking around the empty room with a dazed expression on his face. "I…" He blinked a few times, looked around again, and then shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Tell me how I can help from here."

Bruce performed some sort of cross between shrugging, throwing his hands up, and gesturing to the camera feed with those same hands. "I don't know. I don't know how to close the portals, and I don't know what either of us can do to help."

"Dr. Banner," the god began carefully. "Take a deep breath. Getting agitated won't help."

Bruce laughed bitterly, running his hands through his hair. "You sure about that? Because I was just thinking I need to—to initiate a Code Green." He sucked air down into his lungs and blew it back out. "What else can I do, Loki? This isn't—Tony should be doing this, not me."

"No." Loki shook his head, getting to his feet and walking stiffly over to the table. "Anthony is where he needs to be, and so are you. The Hulk is an Avenger, Dr. Banner, but you are an Avenger, too. Take a deep breath, collect yourself, and take another look."

Bruce buried his face in his hands and inhaled between the gaps in his skin, a burning sensation spreading throughout his core. "I've _been _looking," he cut back, struggling to keep the beast inside from getting any closer to the surface. "There's nothing _there_."

"Dr. Banner." Loki slapped his open palm on the table before reaching out and taking the scientist's face in his hands. "You are not going to rouse the Hulk. Not today, do you hear me? Now think. Use that beautiful brain of yours and think." He gave the man a light shake, staring with eyes that pierced Bruce right down to his soul. "You have me. My perspective will be different than yours because of my familiarity with magic, so start from the beginning and walk me through it."

Bruce raked his hands across his scalp, exhaling loudly as he considered the various digital monitors laid out before him. "Okay. Okay, here's what we know. There are four portals in four locations in Earth's atmosphere. They are all identical to the one from the Battle of New York in every way except for the fact that they have no clear structure or energy source holding them open. All four portals join into one large portal on the other side, meaning any attacks we send in from any of the portals will ultimately attack all of them. But even from the other side, there isn't a source—"

"Don't focus on that." Loki shook his head as he interrupted, finally turning his attention from the color of Bruce's skin to the information being fed to him. "There are ways to contain smoke that don't require you put the fire out."

Bruce blinked. "Well, yes, but that's not exactly…"

"But it's all we have. Because if there is no way to close them, then we've lost. So, we must fight as if there is a way, and we must be determined to figure out what that way is." Loki rubbed his hands together. "Dr. Banner, what can we do to attack these portals? These physical holes, what can we do to patch them up?"

Rubbing the back of his head, Bruce slid the image on his right a little closer, enlarging the photo and trying to come up with some sort of answer to the question. "They're made of energy. They—uh, technically they're tears in the fabric of space. So, dimensions?"

Loki nodded vigorously. "Good, that's good. Uh, let's see—is there a substance in their chemical make-up we can remove? Or perhaps a part of that particular dimension we can manipulate? Something we could add or subtract that would make the portals unstable."

Bruce snapped his fingers. "There's an idea. If we could somehow shift the way the two plains of existence are interacting, there's a chance the door will shut by default. Like… like how an elevator won't open its doors in between two different floors because you can't get on from one and off on the other in a single stop."

Loki drummed his fingers on the table, hands moving unceasingly as he considered the prospect. "How do we shift them, though? How do we hurt the physical gateway?"

"Well, you had to use the Tesseract to open the first portal. Why?"

"The Tesseract is a source of unlimited energy. Granted, I needed the portal to direct and control the energy, but—" He stopped suddenly, green eyes widening. "Ohh."

Bruce grabbed him by the arms. "Interference!" Turning back to the table, the scientist pulled up the four locations and pointed to various structures within the cities. "The most populated places in the world are also going to have the largest concentrations of electricity in the world. If we can utilize every one of these powerhouses and send as much energy through the portal as we can, all at the same time, it just might be enough to break the connection and close the portals."

Loki turned towards the window, staring at the raging storm clouds and billowing smoke with a confident smile. "Before when the connection to the mothership was lost, all of the Chitauri died on the spot. If we're right about how this works, they should all immediately shut down, and we'll win." He whirled around, spreading his arms. "Dr. Banner, you're a genius!"

Bruce grabbed the larger man in a bear hug before he had the chance to protest. "We figured it out, Loki. We got it!"

Loki opened his mouth and then shut it again, startled by the surprise embrace, and then wiggled out of the other's grasp. "Now, we just have to relay this message to all of our teammates, and they have to get things done on their end."

Bruce ran a hand through his hair, a momentary pang in his chest smothering some of his joy. "And after we use all of that power… we'll have four major cities in complete blackout states…"

Loki put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly. "One battle at a time, Dr. Banner. Let's start making calls."

Bruce nodded, pulling his StarkPhone out of his pocket. "Right."

_Please, oh please, let this work._

* * *

"You want us to do _what?_" Clint pushed back against the wall, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled to catch his breath. "Tell me I just misheard you."

"No, we need to do this," came the crackling reply. "I know how it sounds, but we don't have any other options. There is nothing we can attack besides the portals themselves, and all we know about them is that they're all connected and they are sustained by energy."

"Okay, okay, I get it." Clint looked around the room he was in and identified it as a hardware store. "So, I need to get my hands on the controls for the power grid, and then what? Shoot it like some sort of laser?"

"I have a camera on the other side of the portal, and it's attached to one of Tony's robots. I am going to place a target, if you will, on that machine. Once you and the others get control of the power grids, I'll use that target to send the accumulated energy through the portal. Thor is passing the message on to the Jotuns, and then he'll be down to help you, and he'll unleash as much lightning as he can on this side of the portal."

Clint got to his feet, still huffing and puffing, and pressed a hand to his side with a pained wince. He started looking around for anything he—or rather, Natasha—could use to manipulate the computers and security barriers between them and their much needed weapon.

"What about the others?" the archer asked.

"Loki will hopefully recover enough magic while resting to attack here in New York, Tony is going to fire repulsor beams in Tokyo, and the Jotuns are going to use their magic in Jakarta." There was a brief spell where the only thing that came through the speaker was static, but then Bruce could be heard once more. "Do what you can and keep in touch. It's crucial that we all attack at the same time."

"Got it." Clint began stuffing wires and fuses into his pockets, eyes skimming the shelves for anything that might come in handy. "Man, are you sure this is gonna work?"

"Of course I'm not sure," the scientist snapped. "There are aliens and wormholes and giant sky snakes. I have no certainty of anything, but this is still the best chance we have."

Clint heaved a sigh and hung his head, giving himself the momentary luxury of basking in the sheer ridiculousness of the situation he was in. "Alright, Doc, whatever you say. I'll buzz you when I have news."

"Over and out."

Clint switched the frequency on his earpiece, darting to the end of the aisle and grabbing a plastic basket to collect the larger tools in. "Natasha, you there?"

There was momentary pause, and then her voice came through, sounding just as exhausted as his. "Yeah."

"Bruce thinks he might have a solution, and we're gonna need the entire power grid to make it work. I'm in a hardware store somewhere between the waterfront and that big tower that kinda looks like it might actually be two towers. Closer to the water than the other thing, I think. I'm trying to collect stuff we'll need. Meet me here as soon as you can, and bring a few backpacks."

"Backpacks?"

"We're gonna need a lot of stuff, Natasha. When I say we need the power grid, I mean we need the entire grid. It ain't gonna be pretty." Clint put a bottle of adhesive into the basket and kept moving. "C'mon, I can't do this without you. Just get over here, and I can explain it all in person."

"Fine, give me ten minutes. No, fifteen." There was a pause, and the next time she spoke, it sounded like she was running. "Is everyone doing this?"

"Yup," Clint replied, grabbing a couple soldering tools.

Natasha panted on the other side. "What about New York?"

"What about it?"

There was another pause, but it sounded more annoyed than practical. "New York City went black, Clint."

"Oh." Stopping halfway down the aisle, Clint let his mouth open and shut in a silent attempt to find words, before finally spitting out the only thing that came to mind. "Well, that sucks."

Natasha only sighed. "Be there soon."

Clint shook his head with his eyes shut tight, massaging the bridge of his nose. He was certain Bruce and Loki couldn't have forgotten that the neighboring city was down, but without a power source to manipulate, he had no idea what they were going to do. Especially if Loki was going to use whatever was left of his magic to attack from Earth's side.

_They'll figure it out. Probably. _

Clint ran to get another basket.

* * *

Thor tilted his hammer downward and began his rapid descent towards Earth, his brother's words still ringing in his head as he went over his mission for what had to be the hundredth time.

_"Jakodi and Saari are completely unfamiliar with Midgardian technology, and they do not have cards or earpieces to allow for communication. Dr. Banner and I can use the arc reactor below the Tower in place of a power grid, so you'll do the most help in Jakarta."_

Boots struck the pavement, sending a spider web of cracks through the asphalt, and it took the thunder god less than a minute to assess the situation he had landed in.

"Jakodi!" Thor threw Mjolnir through the air, sending roughly half a dozen aircrafts into downward spirals across the midnight sky. "Jakodi, are you here?"

He had barely finished calling out when the world around him was shaken by the roar of a leviathan. Pivoting on the spot, Thor took a step back and stared up in a mix of awe and terror as the creature's armor creaked and popped before ultimately falling away. From underneath, pinkish red spikes made of ice split the monster's skin, the frozen explosion ultimately dropping the beast to the ground with a magnificent thud.

Jakodi landed on the leviathan's head a moment later, rolling sideways and tumbling to the ground with a surprisingly graceful landing.

"Jakodi!" Thor ran towards the frost giant, dodging the falling pieces of shrapnel as he danced across the battlefield. "Jakodi, I have news from—"

"What are you doing here, Odinson?"

Thor slowed to a stop just a few feet away from his directive, taken aback by the younger man's behavior. He quickly reminded himself of the tension between their realms, however, and continued with his usual enthusiasm. "I have news from Loki. He says we must use the Jakartan power grid to attack the portal from the other side. I do not know exactly how it works, but I have these—" he pulled two ear pieces from the pocket Bruce had strapped onto his armor, "—and Dr. Bannaer says he will be able to walk us through the process."

Jakodi examined the thunderer's outstretched hand from a distance, casting suspicious eyes over the Asgardian's entire body before finally reaching out to take one. "One for myself and one for you?"

Thor pointed to his right ear. "I already have one in. This is for Saari."

Both men startled, an explosion rocking the ground beneath their feet as the supports of a nearby building gave out entirely, dropping story after story of concrete and glass to the pavement just two blocks away.

"Where is Saari?" Thor continued, already swinging his hammer in preparation to fight in the skies. "Once we have her, we can approach the power grid and end this battle once and for all."

Jakodi nodded sporadically, looking around himself as he did. He chewed on his lip, his brow creasing as he fought to reorient himself. Then he pointed in the opposite direction of the collapsed building. "That way."

Thor didn't need to hear anymore. He took to the skies and flew in the direction Jakodi had indicated, keeping one eye on the frost giant running below while the other scanned the landscape for any sign of the sister.

_This would be so much easier if they didn't all look the same. _Thor banked to the left and turned in a wide circle, striking Chitauri warriors down one by one until he was back on the path he left. _She is a princess. She should at least have a crown or a cape or a crest—something to set her apart from the other soldiers. It's hard enough trying to see her in the dark without…_

Screeching to a halt, he let himself drop onto the nearest rooftop, eyes narrowing as he looked at the surrounding structures and swarms of conflict. _If she has magic like Loki and Queen Leiknyrr, she should be fairly easy to spot based on her attacks. _

Explosions shook the ground for the second time since Thor arrived, the tremors forcing him down to one knee as the building buckled beneath him. They sounded out in quick succession, five booming roars, and when the echoes faded, the sounds of battle seemed nearly silent by comparison.

_That must be something. If not Saari, then a threat. _Either way, it had to be investigated, so he jumped from the roof and flew straight to the heart of it. Twisting and turning, he navigated the smoke and partial buildings, eventually finding his way down to the ground in one piece.

"Saari?" Thor looked left and right, cautiously approaching the epicenter of the wreckage. "Jakodi? Saari?" He rounded a large, flaming piece of debris that vaguely resembled a leviathan head with a Chitauri hovercraft wedged between its teeth, squinting into the darkness. "Jakodi, is that you?"

"Thor! Thor, help!"

There was no need for a repeat command. Thor was bolting across the molten plaza in a fraction of a heartbeat. He couldn't see a threat as he approached, but Jakodi was definitely not standing, and there was a certain element of desperation in the younger man's voice that was almost primitive.

"Jakodi, what—?" Thor stopped when he saw Saari laying on the ground, her left arm missing and her wounds gushing blood faster than Jakodi's hands could stop it.

Springing into action, Thor dropped to his knees and tore his cape from his shoulders, folding it over twice and pressing it against her chest and empty shoulder socket. He looked down at her body, doing a quick assessment of her injuries and coming to an immediate conclusion.

"It's going to be alright." Thor forced a smile. "Asgard has the most advanced medical technology, and we—"

Saari only shook her head and gave them a weary, almost vacant smile. "Jakodi… take my hand."

Jakodi shook his head, both of his hands pressed against the gaping hole in her stomach which the red cape could not cover. "No, I have to stop the bleeding. We can be sentimental later."

Grunting, the fallen princess struggled to lift her hand. "Don't be stupid… do as you're told… take it…"

Jakodi screwed his eyes shut and continued to shake his head, tears rolling down his cheeks, steam rising from his skin. "No. No, you can't, not you. Not like this."

Saari made a weak fist, frustration showing on what little of her face she could still move. "Odinson."

Thor jumped slightly, blinking twice before spitting out a stupefied, "Yes?"

"My ring… take it… make sure my mother gets that…" She hissed in pain, tilting her head back and gritting her teeth at the sky. "You listen to me, Odinson." She gasped, her bloody chest jumping with every attempt at an inhale. "You take… care of him… for me… you p-protect him… like you would… Loki…"

Thor opened his mouth, but he was at a complete loss for words.

"Stop it!" Jakodi shouted, his voice bouncing off of the destruction and echoing back to them. "Stop it, you're going to be fine_, _so just… just stop it… s-s…"

"Swear it, Odinson," she growled. "On… your father's… honor…"

"I swear," Thor blurted out, nodding vigorously. "I swear on my father's honor and crown and kingdom. I swear on all of Asgard, I will do what you have asked."

Saari managed to smile again, blood splashing past her lips and dribbling down her chin and cheeks. "I'm so lucky…" she whispered, eyes sliding from one prince to the next. "I have… such a… caring… big brother…"

Jakodi finally abandoned the futile attempt at stopping the blood flow, choosing instead to lie down next to her with an arm around her waist. "I would hold you, but I don't want to hurt you."

Saari dragged a rasping breath down into her lungs and forced out a sharp bark of laughter. "Sentiment…" Her hand twitched, brushing against her brother's as he took hold of her ring and slid it from her finger. "Tell mother… tell her I love her… and I am… sorry I did not… say it more… tell them all… and tell them… I'll take care… of our family until… until you all join us…"

"I will," he choked out. "I will, I'll tell them. I love you. I love you so much, and I know all of our siblings would say the same. Mother loves you, too, and she knows you love her. She knows, Saari, I promise…" He pressed his head against hers, his words dissolving into a broken string of sobs and disjointed syllables.

"Odinson…" Saari closed her eyes, a subtle glow starting from her forehead and slowly moving downwards. "I'm… taking one… more… shot…"

Thor's brow creased, confusion settling in his mind for a second before he understood.

"…run…"

Spurred into action by the simple, one-word command, Thor threw his arms around Jakodi and tore him from the ground, thrusting Mjolnir skyward and sending them both up into the atmosphere.

"Odinson! Odinson!" Jakodi squirmed in the thunder god's grip, making a futile attempt at escape. "Take me back! Take me back to her, Odinson, take me back! Take me back to my sister!"

Thor adjusted his grip and directed their course downward, landing at what he felt was a safe distance away from whatever it was Saari was going to do. "Jakodi—"

The younger prince cut him off with a swift kick to the knee, the pain startling Thor just enough to force a loosened grip. Jakodi wormed his way out and took off in a run, making it all of five steps before Thor grabbed his arm in an unrelenting grip.

"Jakodi—"

"Let me go!" the Jotun screamed, digging his feet into the ground and pulling with all of his might. "Let me go, let me go, she needs me!"

"Please—"

"I have to go to her!" Jakodi twisted his arm as hard as he could, never once ceasing in his struggles against the significantly stronger soldier. "Let me _go! _I can't leave her, she can't die alone, she _can't_, she just can't!" He struck Thor in the chest, fingers curling into his breastplate and pulling. "Take me back to her, take me _back_, t-take—take me—"

Thor no longer tried to interrupt. He simply held an icy wrist in each hand and waited for the younger man to burn himself out.

"Please, take me back, please… _please_, I don't want her to die alone… I don't… sh-she's my baby sister. I'm supposed to take care of her, and I couldn't, and… please, she can't die alone, please, please…" Jakodi's words grew increasingly slurred, his phrases fractured by heart-wrenching sobs as he pleaded with the god. "Please, let me go… she's all alone… and she's in pain, and I… I have to help her, please… I don't want her to die in that place… staring up at the smoke and fire… with no one there to hold her hand or… or brush her hair out of her face… or distract her with stories that make her smile… please, Thor… please, I'll do anything… I'll do anything… please, she's my sister, she's my little sister… I can't just let her die, Thor, please!"

Another explosion shook the block, and Jakodi convulsed in the older alien's arms. Thor immediately pressed the smaller male to his chest, wrapping both arms around his frame and trying to think of something—anything—to say. But there was nothing, and all Thor could do was watch as Jakodi sobbed, screaming her name in between haggard breaths and loud wails.

He stood there, still and silent as a statue, holding the distraught survivor in his arms and watching the fresh layer of smoke curl into the sky with no small amount of respect. To her last breath, she fought, knowing anything she could do to help would increase her brother's chances of survival.

"Thor, have you arrived in Jakarta yet?"

Thor turned his head to the right before remembering the speaker in his ear and quietly hissing, "Now is not the time, Dr. Banner."

"I'm just trying to find out where everyone is and what stage of the plan they're on. You don't have to stop fighting to talk to me. That's why we have the earpieces."

Thor growled under his breath, tightening his hold on Jakodi as he ground out another reply. "Yes, I am in Jakarta."

"Have you found the power grid?"

Thor shook his head despite the fact that the doctor couldn't see him. "Not yet."

"Thor, is everything alright? You sound—"

"No." Thor glanced down at Jakodi and then over his shoulder at the havoc raining down on the remainder of the city. "It is not."

Jakodi lifted his head from Thor's shoulder, glassy eyes sliding up to the thunderer's ear. "We need… the power grid."

Thor nodded cautiously. "Yes, that is the next part of the plan, remember?"

Jakodi set his jaw and pulled himself out of Thor's arms, shoving Saari's ring onto his pinky finger. "Then we're wasting time. We need to find that grid and do whatever it takes to close this portal." He looked away, shoulders quaking for a moment before he swallowed the urge to mourn and turned to face the heart of the city. "Let's go."

Thor once again offered a careful nod, choosing to jog a little ways behind while Jakodi took off running.

"Thor, are you still there?"

"Aye."

"What's wrong? What happened?"

Sighing, the god of thunder sped up, not wanting to lose the man he had sworn on all of Asgard to protect. "Saari is dead. Jakodi is…" He shook his head, silently wondering whether the brother's determination would help or hurt their cause.

"Jakodi is…?"

"Jakodi is on the war path."

* * *

"…ny… ear me? To… Ton… Tony!"

Waking up was like being thrown in a pool of ice water, and Tony gasped and convulsed accordingly, immediately aware of an acute pain in his chest and sides. "Wha—?"

Steve was suddenly hovering over him, blurry with a pitch black backdrop painted with stars and smog. "Tony?"

"What… what happened?"

Steve let out a sigh of relief, casting his eyes upward briefly. "Thank God. Tony, I thought I lost you there for a minute. You were shot down, and you hit that building and dropped a couple stories to this rooftop. How's your head? Your back? What hurts?"

Tony grunted, slowly turning his head in search of his faceplate. "Uh… ask again later when the answer isn't everything." Straining, he rolled onto his side and pushed against the ground, trying to get back onto his feet. "Ugh—do we have any more of a plan now than we did when I went under?"

Steve ducked beneath the inventor's arm and looped the appendage around his neck, supporting the man from below as he replied. "Believe it or not, we do. Bruce said we've got to find some sort of power grid or other massive source of energy and fire it into the portal. Then we have to hit this side with another attack, and hopefully we'll be able to disrupt the passage between the two dimensions."

Tony tried to take a step and froze, sharp pain travelling up his leg and into his lower back. "Mmm, nope. I'm stuck."

Steve nodded and moved in front of his teammate, gesturing for the older man to get on his back.

Laughing, Tony did the exact opposite and plopped himself down on the rooftop. "Ha, no. You are not giving me a piggy back ride, first of all, and second of all, I'll only slow you down."

Steve turned around, frowning. "If you think I'm going to leave you—"

"It's not like I'm going to die if I stay here for now. You said we need to get an attack on both sides, right? If I'm right, and I always am, Bruce suggested I use my repulsors to shoot on this side, which means I need to repair at least one of these limbs, enhance the arc reactor in my suit, and connect the two before everybody gets their computers up and running." Pausing, Tony took a few deep breaths and shifted his weight, trying to soothe the pain in his lower half. "My point is, you'll be faster without me, and I'll be faster if I stay here."

"Tony, I don't know the first thing about computers," the soldier objected. "How am I supposed to hack into a power grid and somehow turn the whole thing into a weapon?"

"I'll walk you through it on the coms." Giving a split-lipped smile, Tony weakly punched the younger male on the shoulder. "You're smarter than you think you are, Steve. You can do this."

Steve looked down at the abused joint, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out. "Alright. Do you have a map?"

"I will in about twelve seconds. Get back on the ground, and I'll send you directions." Grunting, the grounded hero reached for his faceplate and shoved it back where it belonged, a smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth when the screens came back to life. "Go get'em, Captain Kangaroo."

Steve chuckled softly and shook his head, getting to his feet and darting across the roof towards the door that lead to the stairwell. "Good luck, Tony!"

Sighing, the recipient of the well-wishes looked at what his computer had to offer him. "Jarvis, I hope you've been paying attention."

"I have already calculated the fastest route for Captain Rogers to take, with debris and alien life forms taken into account."

"Oh, honey, you know what I like." Tony pulled his own hand into his line of vision and tried to recall exactly how to get his index finger to turn into a screwdriver. "Give those directions to Steve, and then help me out because I have… _no _idea what I'm doing."

"Of course. Would you like me to assist you with any problems that are new?"

"I don't need your sass, Jarvis."

"Ah, my apologies. I see I should take this seriously."

Tony grumbled to himself, flipping open a panel on his arm and cursing under his breath at the mangled wire mess that awaited him there.

_Well, here goes nothing._

* * *

"If this works, I will literally throw myself off of a cliff."

"Please, don't. Loki and Dr. Banner came up with this plan, so of course it's going to work."

"I am sticking wires together with _chewing gum, _Natasha."

Grinning slightly, the Russian glanced down at her partner and replied, "Technically, it's bubblegum." She turned her eyes back to the computer screen and continued to type, fingers dancing across the keys as the city around them darkened block by block.

"Everyone is going to hate us for this." Clint coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and he stuck the patchwork wiring back into its panel. "Four major blackouts in four of the world's most populated cities in one day."

"As opposed to an alien race conquering the entire planet in the name of H.Y.D.R.A. in one day, or thereabout." Natasha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and kept typing, silently mouthing his reply as he said it.

"They won't care about that, they'll only care about what they experience in their little bubbles or reality."

Rolling her eyes, the agent spoke again, never once taking her eyes off of the screen. "I know that. I was trying to be funny."

Clint sighed, his voice underscored by the sound of him digging through their pile of tools and materials. "We've talked about this, Tasha. You do the spy stuff, and I do the funny stuff. I'm the funny guy."

"You are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the funny guy. You're not even _a _funny guy." Natasha grinned, shaking her head. "Between you and Loki and Stark, I swear…" She trailed off, her words fading beneath the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Clint."

"Yeah, I got it."

There were a few moments of near silence, the pattering in the hallway growing closer and closer until finally—

"Are you Earth's Mightiest Heroes?"

Clint stammered for a moment. "Uh—kinda? We're two of them. What's, uh, what's the problem?"

"I don't—I don't quite know." The voice was in no way South American. "We aren't familiar with your… weaponry. I think it was a weapon." It was a Jotun, then. "I—she's bleeding, and I do not know what to do to treat her."

Clint moved closer to the intruders, and Natasha heard the sounds of scuffing and dragging as they put the wounded soldier down and then followed suit to join her.

"It looks like she got shot. It's—well, it's not that it's not serious, but it's a common weapon here on Earth. Midgard. Whatever." There was a pause, a slight grunt, the tearing of fabric, and then some more silence. "I think we can treat this. First things first, let's keep her from bleeding to death. You press down right here, hard as you can without hurting her. I'll see what I have in my first aid kit…"

Confident that Clint had the situation under control, Natasha turned all of her attention back to the codes and calculations flashing across the screen.

_Well, at least if the rest of the world decides to hate us, we have allies on Asgard and Jotunheim. _She had to admit, that wasn't exactly the purpose she had in mind when the negotiations started, but the coming days were filled with uncertainty. _At the very least, it's nice to know we've built a safety net._

She only hoped they wouldn't have to use it.

* * *

Loki drummed his fingers on the counter, bringing his glass to his lips and taking another sip as he watched the minute hand slide one notch closer to the twelve. Half-lidded eyes slid from the clock to the countertop and then out towards the window, a heavy sigh dragging down into his lungs before surging back out again.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Loki glanced at Bruce, taking several moments to find his tongue before he managed a reply. "You should be working on the grid."

Bruce shook his head. "I'm all set to go. I had the advantage of not fighting while working, and I didn't have to use any translating programs because everything was already in English."

Sitting down at the bar, Bruce gave his seat a little spin and leaned back against the counter, offering a tight-lipped smile. Loki stared back blankly, too exhausted to comprehend what he did and didn't think about the situation he was in.

"Saari is dead," he replied dumbly. "If I had never told Leiknyrr about wanting to meet my siblings, Saari would never have… she would be home, where she belongs." He swallowed the lump in his throat and stared down at his drink. "What if they blame me for that? Everything we have done to create peace between not only me and my siblings but Midgard and Jotunheim could be undone."

Bruce chewed on his lips, nodding his head a bit absently. "Yes, that could definitely happen."

Loki snorted and attempted humor, but his laughter was too bitter and his words too dry. "I was hoping for something a little more…"

"You wanted a solution, I know." Bruce gave him a weak smile. "Unfortunately, I don't have all the answers. I don't know what's going to happen next. All I can do is tell you… the other Avengers and myself will be on your side, whatever happens. We'll stick together against whatever happens. I know that doesn't really help, but… right now, that's all I have."

Loki let his eyes drift shut and nodded his head slowly, not entirely sure what miracle he had been expecting the doctor to pull from his sleeve. "I know. I appreciate that. I just…" He lowered his forehead to the table. "I feel as though I should have kept my distance. I think it might have been better."

Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it's too late. You didn't keep your distance, and we have to act on the situation we're in now." He reached out and clasped the bloodstained shoulder, careful of any potential injuries that may have been there. "Try not to think about it. You can't do anything until you know what they're going to do, and you might not know that for a while."

Loki did manage a laugh that time, but it was still wrought with fatigue and tainted with disbelief. "That is much easier said than done, Dr. Banner."

Bruce tried to force another smile, but it fell almost immediately. "Yeah, I know."

There was silence between them for a few moments, and after deciding the conversation was over, Loki grabbed a bottle of water from the nearby counter and slid it to his equally worn-out friend.

"Here. Drinking water is very important."

Bruce chuckled, twisting off the cap and taking a long drink.

Loki took a drink as well, hoping the water and rest would give him enough strength to destroy the portal hanging over the city. Because never mind Saari if his weakness caused the portals to stay open. Never mind everything and everyone. He wouldn't forgive himself, and even if others tried to, he wouldn't let them.

Loki took another drink.

* * *

"I am glad you understand this, Son of Laufey, because it is most confusing to me." Thor ran a hand through his hair and turned in a half circle, watching as the machines whistled and whirred and hummed.

"If you want the honest truth, I am cheating a bit." Jakodi glanced at the thunder god for a ghost of a second. "I am using magic to assist me. It is not doing everything—that would be impossible—but I am using a spell to increase the rate at which I am comprehending the orders on the screen. Whatever the Man of Iron or the Gentle Green Giant send to me in written word, I am absorbing and understanding very quickly."

Thor took a few steps closer and leaned over the console, watching the giant's fingers move from key to key at a speed that he knew was frustrating to the both of them. "So… when this is over, you will know much about the power systems of this planet. Will you be able to recreate such process on Jotunheim?"

Jakodi shook his head, eyes shifting between his hands and the screen. "No. I will retain the information for a day or two, and then it will begin to fade. I suppose, technically speaking, it will always be in my mind somewhere, but I would have to use another spell to access and practice it." He stopped, wetting his lips and taking a deep breath before his fingers started to move again. "Saari always says—always said it's cheating to learn things this way."

Thor put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a warm smile. "I think it is alright to cheat when the fate of an entire realm is at stake, Jakodi." He paused to see if there would be a reply, and when there wasn't, he tried again. "If you like, I can do the typing. Then you can keep your eyes on the screen, and perhaps we can get this done faster."

Jakodi nodded slightly, sliding the keyboard towards the blonde. "Don't you have to go help in Sao Paulo?"

"I can only help them once all of the computers are running. I will help you until I absolutely have to leave." Thor nodded his head in the direction of the computers. "What should I command the machines to do?"

Jakodi started vacantly at the space in front of him for a moment or two and then shook himself. "If I am reading these correctly, and I certainly hope I am, then I think the next thing we need to do…"

* * *

"Tony, this isn't working!" Steve ran both hands through his hair, pulling on the short strands and letting out a frustrated groan. "This is why I wanted to bring you along. I don't understand what I'm doing. I don't know how to—"

"Take a deep breath, Spangles, this isn't as hard as you're making it." Tony's voice came through as half static, all of the repairs being focused on the necessary repulsors. "Stop trying to think of this as a computer, and think of it as… troops."

"Tony—"

"No, this is actually going to be helpful, just bear with me. Okay. So, you need an army to fight whatever it is you're fighting. Injustice. Anti-Freedom. I dunno, something like that."

Steve sighed, clenching his teeth and using every ounce of his genetically enhanced strength to keep his mouth shut.

"You have a machine that keeps pumping out brand new soldiers, but the soldiers are automatically going to other locations. You don't need to get soldiers back, you need to put a barbed wire fence around the machine so the new troops stay in one place and you can give them all the same orders." There was a grunt of pain, a few moments of silence, and then Tony was talking again. "You're trying to read all of the information about the places you are disconnecting from, but that doesn't matter. You don't need to get the electricity back or do anything to the places receiving the electricity. You just need to tell me where the places are so I can put a fence between you and them. Does that make sense?"

Steve ground his teeth together, squinting at the screen and trying to apply what Tony had said to what he was seeing. "I think so. So, what you need to know is… the next server we need to disconnect from is PF253336R."

"Jarvis just texted you a code. All you have to do is type in exactly what you see on the screen."

Steve wet his lips, looking at the phone on the table and then back at the screen. "Okay, where do I put it? Do I need to send out the code so it's at the other location, too? It says—"

"Put up your barbed wire, Steve. You see the server, you wanna disconnect the server. Type in the code, hit enter, find the next server. Don't read, don't think, just do what I tell you."

Steve ran his tongue over his teeth and bit the inside of his cheek, shaking his head as he typed in the code. "I'm used to giving orders, not receiving them without explanation…"

"It's called trust, Steve. It's no different than if you sent me to do this. I'm just using you as a medium to follow your orders."

"Gee, thanks." Steve sighed. "Okay, alright. Next is PF692143S."

"See? You're getting this. Use the one we already gave you."

Steve shook his head but did as he was told. "I still think this was a horrible idea."

"I'm sitting on a roof during an alien invasion trying to piece together a weapon of mass destruction from scrap metal and debris, and you want to talk to me about horrible ideas?"

"Yes, because it was your idea, Tony."

"It was our idea."

"It absolutely was not."

"Steve, we're a team. When one of us messes up—"

"PF695966P."

"Harsh."

* * *

Jakodi shoved the thunderer again, keeping one hand on the keyboard while the other repeatedly pushed the god's arm. "I said go. They need you in Sao Paulo, and I'm almost done here."

"I do not want to leave you," the older prince objected. "At least tell me you can find someone among the troops from Jotunheim who will accompany you to the portal."

_I was supposed to accompany Saari. Why would there be someone to accompany me? _He could grab anybody, of course. They would all follow his orders without question, but he didn't want to do that to any of his subjects. _But Odinson doesn't need to know that._

"I will take someone with me. I will be fine, so hurry up and get to Sau Paulo. I will not forgive you for being the reason these attacks are prolonged."

"Tokyo is not finished yet." Thor's objection was weak, and Jakodi knew he was hiding the real reason he wanted to stay. "I have a little time."

"Ha!" Snorting, the frost giant turned his head from the computer just long enough to give the Asgardian a look to summarize the sheer ludicrousness of such a statement. "You are well out of time, Odinson. I told you I will be fine, so you need to leave."

Thor grabbed his shoulder in an attempt to keep him from turning away. "Your sister asked me to protect you, and I will not disrespect—"

Jakodi slapped his hand away. "If you do not leave and this planet suffers as consequence, you will be _spitting _on her corpse, Odinson, and there are few forms of disrespect worse than that." Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself enough to finish his statement in a less engaging tone. "I will not let my sister's death be in vain, and I will not allow _you _to do so, either."

Thor seemed to struggle for a moment, but then he heaved a defeated sigh that signaled his surrender. "Very well. I will go to Sao Paulo now, but listen—" the thunder god pointed a finger right between the blood red eyes, "—you shall not die today. Neither of us will disappoint your sister. Understand?"

Jakodi stared at the tip of the finger for a moment, surprised by the words but even more stunned by what he said back. "You are Loki's brother, not mine."

But Thor only laughed, lowering his finger and moving towards the exit with a final retort. "The brother of my brother is also my brother, you dunce. That is how family trees work, and to suggest otherwise would be rather foolish."

Jakodi turned back to the computer without a word, blinking rapidly and taking a moment—just a moment, just a fraction of a second, because he really did understand how to put logic above emotions in battle—and staring at the band on his littlest finger.

_I could hardly get it on. She's such a tiny little thing… she was such a tiny little thing… but so big in spirit._

Shaking his head, the foreign prince returned to the task at hand, keys clacking as he began severing the connection to one of the five servers that were left.

_It won't be long now. It's almost over. _Jakodi brought his hand to his mouth and kissed the ring. _We'll win, Sister. I promise. We will win._

He wouldn't accept anything less.

* * *

"Tell me where you are with this." Bruce pulled up the video feed from the camera on the other side of the portals, watching on the other screen as the communication lines lit up one by one.

"I have just cut the last connection."

"I've got one more, and Tony says his armor is as ready as it's going to be."

"We're ready, Thor is on his way, and Clint is administering first aid to some of the frost giants, which is actually pretty hysterical because he can't touch them."

"I am directly beneath the portal here in New York, Dr. Banner."

Bruce took a deep breath and flashed a smile at no one. "Alright, guys. As soon as Thor lands and Steve finishes, we're doing this."

"Keep in mind we still don't know if this will work."

"Way to be a killjoy, Natasha."

"She has a point, Tony. Have we thought about what we'll do if this doesn't work?"

Steve cut in without missing a beat. "We fight. Down to the last man."

"Thor just landed on the roof."

"I just typed the last code and… we're in."

Bruce flipped a virtual switch and watched the Tokyo panel light up. "Alright, people. I'm going to use the systems here to send the… EMP, for lack of a better word, to your grids. Then it will go straight up to the robot on the other side of the portal, which will fire it. I'll see the connection break on this end, count to five to give the shock wave a chance to expand, and then I'll give the order to attack the portals from our side. That's Tony, Loki, Jakodi, and Thor. When the dust settles, the sky should be blue and solid again."

"Should," Loki and Clint chimed in unison.

Bruce gave a nervous chuckle. "Right. Should."

Lights flickered across the map, the four locations turning from green to white until, one by one, the commands arrived at every port and began their journey up into the sky. Bruce turned his attention to the video feed, waiting for the screen to go black, holding his breath as the seconds ticked by at an agonizingly slow pace. He crossed his fingers and bit his lip, listening as Jakodi murmured fervently in his native tongue, no doubt praying to whatever deity the Jotuns worshipped.

"Oh, God, please… please, please, please…" That was Steve, lost for words.

"Hey, Steve. Pray on an atheist's behalf, would you?" Natasha, who swallowed hard after she spoke.

"C'mon… C'mon…" Tony, so tense the doctor could practically hear his teeth grinding together.

The screen went black.

Bruce threw his hands in the air with a victorious shout. "Five, four, three, two, one—now!"

* * *

Jakarta turned blue, everything shrouded in an icy haze as blinding, white spires of light shot up from the ground and into its portal. Tokyo's blackout became painfully apparent as the sky beneath its portal was cut in two by a bluish white beam of energy from the most powerful device on the planet. Sao Paulo fell under a wall of clouds as the sky darkened right before lighting back up with a single streak of lightning that dove into its portal with reckless abandon. New York City fell under a haze of emerald and jade, a swirling dome of green light pooling for just a moment before the sparks and shadows surged upwards into its portal.

Skies around the world turned black regardless of their proximity to the wormholes, and cities without power were plunged into total darkness. Tremors shook the ground, concentrating heavily around the four sites before branching out like a jagged spider web into the world around them. There was no moon, no sun, no stars. High-flying planes disappeared from radars and were unable to contact towers anywhere on the planet. Satellites lost all contact with the planet, tides ebbed and flowed with a distorted and foreign gravity, sandstorms struck the dessert while bayous and rainforests began to flood.

It felt like an eternity. It was only ten minutes.

Then, as violently as it had come, it receded. Some skies turned blue, some turned purple and red, some turned navy blue with speckled stars throughout. In Sao Paulo and New York, people found themselves standing beneath a late afternoon sun and a nearly cloudless sky. In Jakarta, the sky was black, but it was alive with stars and constellations that would normally be drowned out in the pollution of a well-lit city. In Tokyo, the sun was still hidden by the horizon, but it had already begun to kiss the edge of the sky with a blend of pink and purple.

It was still. It was silent.

It was over.


End file.
